
Oass 
Book 



PStxtfk 




B) bequest of 



William Lukens Shoemaker 



STUDIES 



JOHN A. DORGAN. 



THIRD EDITION 



PHILADELPHIA : 
Published bv Charles H. Marot, 

No. 605 ARCH STREET. 
18 66. 



4r 






Entered according to Act of Cougress, in tbe year 1S62, 
BY JOHN A. DORGAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



QiA. 
7 t »0« 



JOSEPH BALL, ESQ., 

OF FRANKFORD, 
THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, 

AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF THE REGARD 
OF HIS FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Legion, - 1 

The Poet's Love, 9 

Fate, 1 1 

The Triumph of the Truth, 12 

Never, 1G 

Poppies, H 

Hymn to Night, 21 

Remorse, 24 

The Exile, 25 

Why have we met ? 2? 

Medusa, 28 

Calm, 29 

Ocean, 31 

The Dead Solomon, 32 

The Lovers, 36 

Endymion, 38 

Glamour, 40 

Sonnets, 41 

Lethe, 47 

Sir Rupert, 49 

The Tide, 51 

K„ 52 

Winter, 54 

The New Poet, 55 



vi contents. 

Long Ago, 59 

The Nightingale, Gl 

To , G3 

The Dreamer, G4 

The Voice, 66 

Lines, 67 

The Castle in the Air, 68 

The Mermaid, TO 

Disenchanted, 72 

Sir Rohan, 73 

The Burial op the Conqueror, 75 

Song — Gone, 83 

Tannhauser, 84 

The Same, 94 

The Charmer, 97 

The River op Tears, 98 

Bitter Sweet, 101 

The Temptation op the Actor, 103 

The Fallen Star, 106 

The Iron Harp, 107 

First Loss, 109 

The Deformed, 111 

Boat Song, 114 

Kavadiska, 116 

Beauty, 118 

The Statue, 119 

A Farewell, 121 

The Stars, 122 

The Cap and Bells, 123 



CONTENTS. VII 

Too Late, 124 

Twilight, 1-6 

To a Friend, 12 ^ 

Lost, 12s 

King Death, 129 

The Thought, 131 

Ernest Hay, 132 

In Arctis, 135 

It Might Have Been, 139 

The Ghosts, 140 

The Rose, 141 

The Mystic, 142 

How Shall we Wed ? 143 

Melancholia, 144 

Poe, 146 

Man and Woman, 147 

Una, 149 

To Earthly Beauty, 151 

Autumn, 152 

Unrest, 154 

No, 156 

Fame, 157 

The Bard of Pain, 159 

The Kiss, 160 

Song — Let us Forget, 161 

The Death Bed, 162 

Agnes, 166 

Sylvia, 167 

Changed, 168 



viii contents, 

Departed, 170 

Marah, 171 

The Gate, 172 

Dreams, 173 

Not Yet, 174 

The Troll's Captive, 175 

The Philtre, 177 

The Sphynx, 179 

Time, 180 

Tender and True, 181 

Amidst the Darkness, 183 

Why Sleeps thy Soul ? 1 85 

November, 187 

The Past and Future, 188 

The Garden, 191 

Our Love, 192 

Psyche, 194 

The Statesman, 198 

Mene, Mene, 198 

The Martyr, 200 

The Sword of Fire, 202 

The New Year, 1858, 204 

The New Year, 1861, 206 

From the Dead, 208 

The Herald, 210 

Burns, 211 

The Wild Waves, 214 

By the Sea, 216 

The Praise op Sorrow, 217 

The Best of Boodh, 219 



LEGION 



i. 
I read ; and evermore my heart in time 

With the wild mnsic of the poet throbbed ; 
Now it arose, serene, assured, sublime, 

And now, impatient and uncertain, sobbed : 

It shook with ecstacy the panting stars ; 

In dungeons dank it made its rayless lair ; 
It rent i:s chains, and wrenched away its bars, 

In agonies of ultimate despair. 

And then I wept, who long for deathless fame, 
Because the words I utter are so weak, 

Whose fate I reckon not, accepting shame 
As justly mine, so coldly do I speak, 



LEGION. 
II. 

With bitter sneers or idle stares 
They pass the Future's poet by, 

Nor know a richer soul than theirs 
Mocks at their haughtier penury. 

But could they lift the veil that clips 

The secrets of the years to be, 
What passionate joy would touch their lips, 

And they would gaze how differently ! 

For he shall wear the laurel crown ; 

And all the world, with dazzled eyes, 
Shall listen, gazing toward his throne 

In eagle depths of blazing skies. 

III. 

Like lightnings of the summer night, 
That come and go without a sound, 

Great thoughts have fill'd me with delight, 
And passing, left a gloom profound. 

As if a prophet should be weak 

To speak God's word, even so with me ; 

For I am dumb ; I cannot speak 
The beautv I was born to see. 



LEGION. 3 

Harsh destiny ! as if there were 
Lovers, whom fate forbids to wed, 

And love to part ; who, pining near 
Each other, wish that they were dead. 

Patience, my soul ! I said of yore, 
For time shall touch thy silent lips ; 

And thou shalt speak thy secret lore, 
In music brighter for eclipse. 

Or else, I said, the dreams will cease, 
That vex thee with their riddles high ; 

Than thus to dwell, and know not peace, 
'Twere better, so methinks, to die. 

I erred : my lips are sealed as then ; 

Nor ceased my dreams, but more they come ; 
I wander lonely amongst men, 

"Who know not that my soul is dumb — 

Like ships that spell-bound roam the deep, 
And pass by many a happy shore, 

And know the weary watch they keep 
Shall be in vain forevermore. 



LEGION. 
IV. 

My heart is old 
In the sorrowful thought, in the tearful lore, 
That only the poet's eye hath read, 

That only the poet's tongue hath told. 
My heart is cold, 
As the sleet that clings to the branches frore, 
As the sightless winds that howling tread 

In the dreary midnight the shimmering wold. 

Great thoughts in glory or in gloom arrayed 

Like thunder clouds across my soul are borne ; 
But what avails it ? One by one, they fade, 
And I remain forlorn ; 
Sullen and sad, 
I sit, and feel, as they fade and die, 

The silent sorrow that maketh mad 
With the deathly stare of its stony eye. — 

The indignant spirit beats its bars ; 
It trembles for the happy stars. 

V. 

For beauty I longed from my youth, 

And truth : 

And the hunsrer I felt, and the thirst, 



LEGION. 

Were accurst : 

And I weep that the sounds of my lyre 

Shall expire ; 

That the rapture I breathe, and the pain, 

Are in vain. 

For the shapes that I chase, 

If a moment I clasp, 
Die in my fiery gaze, 

Fade in my passionate grasp, 
Like the streams in the desert that sink, 
As the pilgrim approaches to drink. 

And the poet shall die ; but his strain, 
And the rapture it breathes, and the pain, 
Shall remain, 

And like winds from the garden of God, 
With perfume and melody shod, 
Wander abroad. 

Oh, could I speak the desire 

That clothes me with fire ! 
And oh, could I utter the woe 
That I know, 

As I feel that in vain I aspire ! 



LEGION. 

VI. 

Low voices, chanting mournful ditties, 

Trouble the silence of my sleep ; 
Like bells that peal in sunken cities, 

Stirred by blind motions of the deep. 

They whisper of the dream departed, 

And of the aspiration fled, 
The love that perished broken-hearted, 

The hope that smiled and fell down dead, 

Oh, who shall guide the plough, contented, 
With hands that might have swayed the sword? 

And I have wept, but not relented, 

Hearing those mournful murmurs poured, 

For who but I shall bear this burden ? 

But all who will may gather flowers ; 
And take of such the proffered guerdon, 

Glad spirits of more blissful hours, 

A traitor ! Loyal to the beauty 

That is forevermore am I ,* 
He serveth best who serveth duty, 

Though by to-morrow it may die, 



LEGION. 
VII. 

I fling the gauntlet down to Time — 
To Time, that mocks my feeble rhyme : 
I spit at Fate, that does me wrong — 
At Fate, that drowns my dying song. 

Oh thou art strong, and sharp thy scythe, 
Old graybeard ; and thy limbs are lithe : 
And thou art stern, detested Fate ; 
And I am weak, and yet must wait. 

But oh, be sure the soul grows strong 
In battle fierce, and suffering long ! 
Sinews of hate and thews of woe 
Have conquered many a haughty foe ; 

They clothe with lightning every bone 
Of this defiant skeleton ; 
Immortal hate, immortal pain, 
Are burning in each bursting* vein. 

Come on \ I scorn ye, Time and Fate ! 
I feel that ye have made me great, 
And by myself I swear that ye 
My slaves, my suppliants, shall be, 



LEGION. 

Henceforth we part not ! Crouch, and own 
Your creature-master. Have I won 
Already ? Ha ! the truth appears — 
Ye are but victors by our fears ; 
And he, who dares your wrath, shall be 
Your chosen lord, and only he. 



THE POET'S LOYE. 



Oh love ! I Lope to win a name 

That endless time shall lessen not ; 
And all the universe aflame 

Glows in the fervor of my thought ; 
And my swift fancy comes and goes, 

A splendor robed in light divine, 
And like an ocean, ebbs and, flows 

This boundless poet heart of mine. 

For me the flowers their perfumes keep ; 

For me the stars their choral chants ; 
And if I wake, or if I sleep, 

Beauty, the mystery that pants 
For the embrace of strength, is near, 

To me unveils her pensive face, 

9 



10 THE POET'S LOVE. 

And smiles upon me without fear, 
In many a wild and lonesome place. 

And fiercer are the fires of day, 

And deeper are the glooms of night, 
That opening inward, far away, 

Unfold to my anointed sight ; 
And it is thine, to say to me, 

Which I shall take for my abode, 
Infinite bliss or misery, 

The Pit of Hell, the throne of God. 



FATE. 



These withered hands are weak, 
But they shall do my bidding, though so frail ; 
These lips are thin and white, but shall not fail 

The appointed words to speak. 

Thy sneer I can forgive, 
Because I know the strength of destiny ; 
Until my task is done I cannot die, 

And then I would not live. 

11 



THE TEIUMPH OF THE TEUTH. 



The middle of the night drew on apace, 
And, sad of mood, alone, afar I stood, 

Where the dank moonlight filled an open space, 
Amidst an ancient wood. 

Methought that, through the silence of the night, 
I heard sweet music coming from afar, 

That, with the eagerness of its delight, 
Did tremble like a star. 

And I heard songs of triumph chaunted loud, 
That nigher seemed to draw and ever nigher ; 

Now swooning earthward like a heavy cloud, 
Now surging up like fire. 
12 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRUTH. 13 

i 

And louder evermore the music grew, 

With its shrill ecstacy drawing the breath ; 

The songs of triumph shook the infinite blue 
With tremors as of death. 

Then silence fell ; and through the open space, 
In which I stood, a strange procession passed, 

Moving as noiselessly upon the grass 
As spirits on the blast. 

Out of the darkness of the wood they came ; 

Into the darkness opposite they went — 
Imperial forms, whose gestures did proclaim 

The depth of their content. 

Thrilled their fierce lips and flashed their earnest 
eyes 

With joy, as they upon each other gazed ; 
Flushed were their faces thin, and to the skies 

Their wasted arms were raised. 

I knew the pageant was the triumph high 

Of Truth : I knew these were her worshippers ; 

For this, for this, who perished silently 
In the unreturning years ! 



14 THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRUTH. 

These passed, and then, with hopeless eyes down- 
cast, 

Each with his hands clasped on his burning heart, 
There came a vanquished throng, who each, aghast, 

Walked moodily apart : 

And in each visage woe unspeakable, 
Tn many strange contortions, could I see, 

Which of the undying worm and flames of hell 
Hinted unwillingly. 

They passed, and after them, a thing of terror, 
The goddess they had worshipped, with a sneer 

Upon her queenly countenance — the Error ! 
Above or shame or fear : 

For though the sceptre from her hand was riven, 
And from her brow the circle, she kept still 

Her evil beauty which divided heaven 
And her desire for ill. 

She gazed around her with a weary air ; 

Not without reason was she deified ; 
Troubled, indeed, but mailed against despair, 

In passion and in pride. 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRUTH. 15 

Last, in a stately chariot, trembling, wan, 

The victor, Truth. Her eyes were full of tears ; 

For from that hour her peaceful reign began, 
And all the happy years 

Of all the infinite To-Be were her's ; 

What marvel that she wept and trembled then? 
Fallen were the Error and her worshippers, 

Never to rise again ! 

And they were gone — and once again arose 
The music that befitted such a sight, 

And, as the sea convulsed with tempest throes, 
It thundered through the night : 

As if a whirlwind passed, the trees were rent ; 

The forest fell to dust, on every side ; 
And I grew mad, and shouted my delight, 

And swooned : would I had died ! 



NEVER. 



There is never a cloud in the sky, 
Nor a breath of wind to stir the forests leafless and 

dreary ; 
No forests so deep and dark, no sky so solemn and 
high, 
As the love that makes life weary. 

Oh ! let the sky above 
Grow dark, and the barren woods to their hearts 

by a storm be shaken : 
For to-night, to-night, I will dream ; I will dream 
of her I love, 
And die ere I awaken. 
16 



POPPIES. 



Wild faces full of pain around me glow 

Upon the dark ; and sounds of wrong 

Are in my ear ; 

And, low and clear, 

At fitful intervals I hear, 

Soothing the discord, strains of solemn song 

By angels chanted, sweeping by 

In argent calm, as from the cloudy sky 

The moon breaks forth, and all the dread 

Of darkness suddenly is fled. 

Spring, and the woods their green renew ! 
Spring, and the skies again are blue ! 
I feel a feverish bliss that grows to pain, 
A drowsy poison in each languid vein ; 

A2 17 



18 POPPIES. 

I long for action ; to endure or do 

I care not what ; for here, by slow degrees, 

My soul is wasted in inglorious ease. 

Vain longing ! Idle dream ! "Why should I rise ? 

Let it suffice, 

I can but will not. 'Tis the sense 

Of gods in their omnipotence, 

This longing in the calm of the skies ; 

But they are wise, 

And let the tempest sweep, and reap the sword, 

The dull, dense regions of the painful earth, 

Tempering with sounds abhorred 

The too, too sweet accord 

Of their melodious mirth. 

Why should I rise ? 

I mock the wise : 

For all the secrets of the skies, 

The glory bards desire in vain, 

The maddening rapture, the delicious pain 

Of love that bard hath never known or sung 

With cloying words and honeyed tongue, 

The wealth of every sea and every land 

Are mine, and only mine ; 



rorriES. 1 9 

And mine, and only mine, the calm divine, 
That who that hath not felt shall understand. 

Why should I rise ? 

I gaze with all-compelling eyes, 

And lo! the desert blooms, and earth grows paradise ; 

And crowded marts and battlemented walls, 

Turrets, and domes, and spires of strange device, 

"Wild woods and snowy mountains, 

Calm lakes, swift torrents, and the splash of foun- 
tains, 

And murmurous sound of gleaming waterfalls, 

Are where the naked silence dwelt, like some mad 
monk, so long ! 

I listen : golden numbers float 

Unto me, starry strains of sweetest song, 

And thoughts of things remote. 

Oh, it is sweet to dream as I have dreamed, 

To dream as I am dreaming ; 

For only thought is real ! What hath seemed 

Hath been. Is, what is seeming. 

Why should I strive the thought to carve in stone 

That stone cannot express ; in words, 

The passion that no tongue hath known ; 



20 poppies. 

In sound, the strains that mock our subtlest chords ? 
So, let me know them, and so let them go, 
Unuttered unto all beside below. 



HYMN TO NIGHT. 



Ob ; Night! Black Night! Slow-footed, starless 

Night ! 
Stoop down and let me fold thee to my soul ; 
For of the majesty of thy despair 
I am a part, and thou a part of me. 

Darkness in earth and heaven, and in my heart ! 
I own thy strength. How often have I gazed 
Upon thee thus ! Gloomy and fell as now 
Wast thou ; but I was happier, as I thought, 
And understood not thy wild tenderness : 
But now, stoop down, and with a kiss forgive me, 
For henceforth I will worship thee alone. 

21 



22 HYMN TO NIGHT. 

There was a time I would Lave questioned thee ; 

For men have held thee wise, and full of craft, 

Potent for good and ill, but most for ill, 

And empress of a realm of mysteries, 

Of dreams and omens, and all hidden things, 

The awful secrets thine of destiny, 

The lost past, unknown future, life, and death ; 

And questioned thee, in whispers, shuddering 

Even as they questioned thee, dreading thy answer, 

Which came not. Now I will not bid thee speak, 

For could I ask a boon, that boon were death, 

And thou canst give it not, nor yet withhold, 

Bat art as sad and feeble as myself, 

Strong only even as I myself am strong, 

Strong only in the patience to endure, 

And the serenity of thy despair, 

Which is immortal. 

Solemn, godlike Night ! 
Thou answerest not by voice, or sight, or sense. 
Shall earthly frailty move thee from thy calm ? 
A thousand sounds of man's discordant life, 
Sad as the earth upon the coffin-lid 
When mortal hopes are ended, in thy ear 



HYMN TO NIGHT. 23 

Dave fallen thus — thy hollow gloom remains, 
Nor more, nor less, but evermore the same, 
As if they were not, or as if thou wast not, 
The silence of the dead unto the dead, 
The darkness of the riddle of the world. 

I would not have it otherwise, Enough 
To know thy secret and thy sympathy. 
The silence of thy sovereign nature keep, 
Oh, awful Night ! I, too, henceforth, will be 
Dumb, in the voiceless cloisters of my heart 
Shutting the stony quiet which I feel. 



BE MOKSE 



I die. I know that men shall haunt my grave — 
Great men, to weep a kindred spirit fled — 

Whose souls in hours of mirthfulness and gloom, 
Upon my verses fed ; 

I know the critics shall be kind at last ; 

I know the world shall deem that not in vain 
I lived ; but I — alas, oh barren past I 

"Would I could live again ! 

24 



THE EXILE. 



Shadows of lost delight I arise 

And move my darksome soul to tears ; 
Kenew the light of faded skies, 

The rapture of the fallen spheres ; 
For I will give to night to these ; 
To-morrow to the stormy seas — 
Beyond them, it may be, is peace I 

Even as I speak, the past returns ; 

I dwell again in Paradise ; 
Around the ardent spring-tide burns ; 

Above us laugh the happy skies ; 
All things in gladness onward move, 
And earth beneath and heaven above 
Are full of love and only love. 

B 25 



26 THE EXILE. 

Of all that joy a part are we ; 

Of all that love we snare the bliss ; 
And know the years to come shall be 

As full of happiness as this : — 
I drain my madness to the lees, — 
To-morrow to the stormy seas, — 
Beyond them, it may be, is peace ! 

For all the rapture was my own ; 

And all the falsehood hers ; and so, 
The dream that lit the earth is gone, 

And I the dreamer sadly go : 
No more of mournful memories ; 
To-morrow to the stormy seas, — 
Beyond them, it may be, is peace ! 



WHY HAVE WE MET? 



Why have we met ? Each gazing upon each, 
With vain desire we wither and grow pale, 
Whom love forbids to love, forbids to part. 

Sad are the days we spend together ; sad 

The artificial smile, the formal speech, 

So different from the words that haunt our lips. 

More sad the nights when we have said 'Farewell!' 
More sad the lonely couch, the dream of bliss 
That cannot, shall not be. Why have we met ? 

Why have we met ? We cannot speak the thought 
That fills our eyes with tears, our hearts with woe. 
Why have we met? Oh God ! Why have we met ? 

27 



MEDUSA 



Say not that I to this despair 

With artful smiles have guided thee ! 
Is it my fault that I am fair ? 
' Art thou to blame that I am free ? 

I knew not that thou could'st not look 
On me and live : Lo, I can shut 

Our friendship, as I would a book ! 
Lo, I can trample it under foot ! 

I wrong thee not. No more ! Arise ! 

I am Medusa unto thee ; 
I smite thee with my placid eyes ; 

But curse thy destiny, not me !• 

28 



CALM. 



On a dreary eve of a wintry day, 

A poet sate by his fire alone ; 

His brow was wrinkled ; bis hair was gray ; 

His heart of fire was a heart of stone. 

The poet sate by the fire alone, 

And silently gazed on the flickering flame, 

And calmly he thought of the days agone 

As the lisrht on his forehead went and came. 

Quenched in his heart was the fever thirst 
For fame ; he had labored ; the world was proud- 
Praised, alike his best and worst, 
"With noisy clamors, and vauntings loud : 
But his haughty spirit its praise denied ; 

All he had done he held as naught, 

29 



30 CALM. 

Wan as the moon by the day descried, 
In the light of his greater after thought. 

For he knew that the works, which the world held 

great, 
Were the shards and shells, that his soul had rent 
And cast behind, as from state to state, 
Grander and brighter, it onward went. 
Through the night of time, that he knew was near, 
His name like a star might onward roll ; 
It mattered not : in pain and fear 
He had built, not fame, but a godlike soul. 



OCEAN . 

I stand upon the summer sands, 

And gaze upon the sea, 
And still he murmurs as of old ■ 

His ancient mystery. 

He tells his doubts and his desires 

Unto a thousand lands ; 
With him they laugh, with him they weep, 

But no one understands. 

The sadness of immortal thought 

His lonely spirit shrouds, 
And this he speaks in unknown tongues 

To perishable crowds, 

In strains as sorrowful and grand, 

As some great poet's lay, 

Which the world murmurs to itself 

When he has passed away. 

31 



THE DEAD SOLOMON. 



" And when we had decreed that Solomon should 
die, nothing discovered his death to them except the 
creeping thing of the earth, which gnawed his staff. 

" And when his body fell down, the Genii plainly- 
perceived that had they known what is secret they had 
not continued in a vile punishment. n 

I. 
King Solomon stood in the house of the Lord, 

And the Genii silently wrought around, 
Toiling and moiling without a word, 

Building the temple without a sound. 

II. 
Fear and rage were theirs, but naught 

In mien or face, of fear or rage : 
For had he guessed their secret thought, 

They had pined in hell for many an age. 
32 



THE DEAD SOLOMON. 33 

III. 

Closed were the eyes that the demons feared ; 

Over his breast streamed his silver beard; 
Bowed was his head, as if in prayer, 
As if, through the busy silence there, 

The answering voice of God he heard. 

IV. 

Solemn peace was on his brow, 

Leaning upon his staff in prayer ; 
And a breath of wind would come and go, 
And stir his robe, and beard of snow, 

And long white hair; 
But he heeded not, 
Wrapt afar in holy thought. 

V. 

King Solomon stood in the house of the Lord, 
And the Genii silently wrought around, 

Toiling and moiling without a word, 
Building the temple without a sound. 

VI. 

And now the work was done, 
Perfected in every part ; 



34 THE DEAD SOLOMON. 

And the demons rejoiced at heart, 

And made ready to depart, 
But dared not speak to Solomon, 
To tell him their task was done, 

And fulfilled the desire of his heart. 

VII. 
So around him they stood with eyes of fire, 

Each cursing the king in his secret heart, — 
Secretly cursing the silent king, 

Waiting but till he should say " Depart ;" 
Cursing the king, 
Each evil thing : 

But he heeded them not, nor raised his head ; 
For King Solomon was dead ! 

VIII. 
Then the body of the king fell down ; 

For a worm had gnawed his staff in twain ; 
He had prayed to the Lord that the house he 

planned 
Might not be left for another hand, 

Might not unfinished remain ; 
So praying, he had died ; 
But had not prayed in vain. 



THE DEAD SOLOMON. 35 

IX. 

So the body of the king fell down ; 
And howling fled the fiends amain ; 
Bitterly grieved, to be so deceived, 

Howling afar they fled ; 
Idly they had borne his chain. 

And done his hateful tasks, in dread 
Of mystic penai pain, — 

And king Solomon was dead ! 



THE LOVERS. 



Back from the Holy Land he came, 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

With his old fond love and his knightly fame ; 
(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 

They met by chance at the olden spot, 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

And the lady — ha ! she knew him not ; 
(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 

For time apd care, and Moslem sword, 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

Had marred the face of that valiant lord ; 
(Sing ever, my true love. I wait for thee !) 
36 



THE LOVERS. 37 

And another was with her, and even then 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

With laughter she told him the tale again ; 
(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 

Of the vows she breathed, so long ae;o, 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

There, when the crescent moon was low ; 
(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 

" You are not jealous," the lady said ; 

(The river runs downward to the sea,) 
" The dream is fled," the lady said, 
"And he in Palestine is dead ;" 

(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 

The good knight turned, he spake no word, 
(The river runs downward to the sea,) 

But shuddering cast away his sword ; 

(Sing ever, my true love, I wait for thee !) 



BNDYMION. 



By sorrow wedded unto poesy, 

He loved in airy dreams apart, 
Beneath the melancholy moon to lie, 

And waste his passionate heart. 

In all the world he felt himself alone, 
And therefore Nature only loved ; 

Heedless of man, as one upon a throne, 
From sympathy removed. 

By the same sorcery by which flowers draw 
From dank earth and invisible air 

Perfume and color, from such thoughts as awe 
The spirit m despair, 
38 



ENDYMION. 39 

His eye a starry splendor, and his face 

A spiritual beauty drew ; 
And still he kept not the accustomed ways, 

Nor earthly love he knew. 

When he died young, because his mystery 
Baffled their cunning, men did make 

The legend which you know, how heavenly 
Diana did forsake 

Her state among the gods, her purity 

Forgot, and in the middle-night 
Took earthly shape his paramour to be : 

And undivine delight 

Shared with him, whilst he slept, but fled ere 
morn ; 

He woke, and found her not, and sighed, 
"Wandered with unfulfilled desire forlorn, 

Withered away and died. 



GLAMOUE. 

With what a glory glowed the day, 
A rapture that could not decay, 
And choral with unnumbered spheres 
How rang the night of other years ! 

By greener paths than these I tread 
I wandered when the dawn was red ! 
On grander hills the statelier trees 
Were loud with sweetest prophecies ; 

The air a richer perfume fell, 
And aching lay along the dell ; 
A louder anthem sang the sea 
Of a diviner mystery. 

A radiance flooded all the air I 

A splendor brightened everywhere ! 

I loved ! I loved ! and day and night 

Were overflowing with delight ! 
40 



SONNETS. 

i. 

LOVE. 

My love has taught me. He is more than life, 

And all that know him not were better dead. 

His is the only calm, the only strife ; 

There are no tears but those that he has shed ; 

No doubts but his ; no tremors but his tremors ; 

No smiles but his ; no kisses but his kisses ; 

No hopes but his ; no dreamers but his dreamers ; 

No speech but his ; no blisses but his blisses. 

No longer stand afar, apart, alone, 

But love, and loving thou shalt be beloved ; 

No longer close thine eyes unto the sun, 

Nor be a statue, silent and unmoved, 

Nor look on sorrow with a tearless eye, 

Nor without gladness see joy passing by. 

B2 41 



42 SONNETS. 

II. 

THE AWAKENING. 

"Ah, is it well, that thou with stormy shouts, 
Shouldst wrong my deep and sure tranquillity, 
Saying — 'Arise Ithe days of dreams and doubts 
Are ended, and the world awaits for thee.' 
Not yet," my sad heart murmurs, " Oh ! not yet ; 
Sweet is the drowsy life I lead, most sweet." 
" The inevitable gates are open set, 
The multitudes impatient throng the street, 
They clamor for thy coming." '' Oh ! not yet ; 
Sweet is the drowsy life I lead, most sweet." 
" Arise ! Oh, Heart — be firm, no more regret 
The life, that hath been thine, so incomplete. 
Arise, Arise." "I yield. Oh; who shall be 
Wiser than God, stronger than Destiny ?" 

in. 
STRIFE. 

The years are minutes, melting in the glow 
Of fervid aspiration that I feel : 
The minutes, years, that into stono congeal 
With tempests of despair that on me blow. 
Infinite victory that I foreknow 



SONNETS. 4o 

Cannot the caverns of my anguish seal. 
Infinite pain, cannot my rapture steal. 
If I endure, what jagged heights of woe 
My naked feet must climb ? If I refuse, 
What calm of god-like power shall I resign ? 
Hard is the task, betwixt the twain to choose, 
And yet the task perpetually is mine. 
Alas ! for such a doom as this, — the worst ; 
Both life and death are curses and accursed. 

IV. 
MIDNIGHT. 

I would not tamely tread the beaten way ; 

I would not marvel at the olden sights ; 

Beneath another night, another day, 

My spirit did exult in strange delights. 

The dreams of youth which did out-climb the stars, 

The hopes of youth which did out-run the wind, 

The will of youth which knew nor bounds nor 

bars, 
All these, alas ! are feeble now, and blind. 
Quenched is the radiance in the past that shone, 
My strength hath become weakness, my desire 
^Despair, my crown of fame a crown of fire ; 
Gone is the yearning, and the vision gone ; 



44 SONNETS. 

And to the glory which hath fled, in vain 
Shall man or God make murmur " Come again!" 

v. 
LIFE AND DEATH. 

The sworder by the sword shall fall, I said ; 
Nor less the dreamer in his dream shall cease. 
And Life replied — " They do but seem to fade :" 
But Death was silent. To the stony peace 
That on the pallid forehead lays his hand, 
And lays his head upon the marble breast, 
lie pointed, as if I should understand, 
And smiled ; but never syllable expressed. 
And still I gaze into his dreamless eyes, 
And gazing, feel the life within me shrink ; 
And still I muse upon his mysteries, 
But never nigher draw unto their brink. 
When we are one, and then, alas ! alone, 
The meaning of his silence shall be shown. 

VI. 
TO-NIGHT. 

I thank thee, Father, that I die alone ; 

They passed before, whose true and tender pain, 

I might have craved ; who now that they are gone 



SONNETS. 45 

Feel that the pang I felt was not in vain, 
Since it has spared them this. I die unknown, 
A withered bud, an incompleted strain. 
For this I thank thee, Father ; none shall moan, 
Trembling, lest such a doom should come again, 
Saying, " Oh : Hope, he hoped : Oh! Love, he loved, 
And is not ; yet ye promised him, as thus 
Ye promise, saying, ' All shall be removed, 
But the assurance that ye place in us.' 
Ye cannot us deceive who him deceived," 
But now they shall believe, and be believed. 

VII. 
OBLIVION. 

Weep not, oh, Beauty ! that thy spells shall cease ; 
Nor moan, oh, Love ! that thy desire shall die ; 
Cease not, oh, Hope ! to breathe sweet melodies, 
Though evermore they fade away on high 
And perish utterly, leaving us sad 
As if a star had vanished from the sky ; 
The poet's brain to vex till he goes mad, 
Forget not, Fame ! though thou art vanity ; 
Oh, Joy ! no more that thou art mortal sigh ; 
Because Oblivion is all in all ; 



46 SONNETS. 

And Hate and Ugliness, as with a pall, 
lie covers ; Shame of immortality 
Bereaves ; and by his hand with friendly care 
Led, by the side of Lethe kneels Despair. • 



LE TEE . 



Bring wine ; the night draws on to morn ; — 

Drear night of drearier morrow : 
Bring wine, for we are all-forlorn, 
And would forget our sorrow ; 
Bring wine ; our eyes with tears are dim : 
Bring wine ; bring wine ; fill to the brim. 

Bring wine, for other hope is none : 

Bring wine ; our lives go darkling ; 
Bring wine ! for grief, like snow in the sun, 
Melts in the goblet's sparkling : 
Bring wine ; our eyes with tears are dim : 
Bring wine ; bring wine ; fill to the brim. 



47 



48 LETHE. 

Bring wine ; I almost would, that one 
Should poison bring thereafter ; 

The old Egyptian queen outdone, 
Should be a theme for laughter : 

Bring wine ; our eyes with tears are dim 
Bring wine ; bring wine ; fill to the brim. 



SIB ET7PERT. 



Sir Rupert to the wars is gone : 
He shuddered, girding his good sword on ; 
He wept as he bade his wife farewell ; 
Shall he come back ? Ah ! who shall tell ? 

An untold dread was on his face, 
As sadly he gazed at the ancient place ; 
And thrice he turned as he rode away, 
As if he should see it no more for aye. 

The raven croaked on the roadside bough, 
And the burial hymn was chanted low, 
And stumbled his sure-footed steed so tall, 
As he rode by greenwood and churchyard-Avail. 

C 49 



50 sir RurftiT. 

He sighed ; for a gloom was in the air, 
And a voice in his heart that cried Beware ; 
And he muttered the words of a boding song, 
At the head of his troop as he rode along — 

" We seek thee, we fly thee, O Death ! in vain ; 
The soldier may live, and the priest be slain : 
Then come with honor, and not disgrace, 
And take the last of a knightly race." 



THE TIDE. 

Cold in the misty autumn sky 

The moon is overhead ; 
And stretched along the yellow sands 

The great sea lieth dead. 

It was for love of her he died ; 
But she shall smile again, 
And he along the yellow sands 

Shall moan anew his pain : 

For love of her he shall arise, 
And of her scorn complain, 

And for her die a thousand times, 
And for her live again. 

But alas ! alas ! for the maiden proud, 

And alas ! for the poet sweet : 

Love cannot call his heart to life 

That breaketh at her feet. 

51 



K. 



You should have spoken ; not, that day by day, 
And night by night, a life of death I bore, 

Oh, not that I was sad, who might have been so 
glad — 
For now I weep no more. 

You should have spoken ; not that I endured 

Deep anguish in irrevocable years, 
For, trust me, for the bliss of such an hour as this 

I would renew their tears. 

But that your mighty spirit knew no peace 
So long, and walking darkling to and fro, 
Saw neither sun nor moon, knew neither night 
nor noon, 
In pride-begotten woe ; 
52 



k. 53 

Unheeding how the seasons came and went, 
How as of old the skies did change above, 

And whilst they went and came, low I remained 
the same, 
And feared to own my love. 



WINTER. 



Now, let the wind arise, and sweep 

Across the barren wold — 
And let a cloud hide all the stars, 

And let the night be cold — 
Let river and plain be white with snow, 

What matters it to me ? 
And let the frozen branches groan — 

What is it unto thee ? 

For we can sit beside the fire, 

And talk of what we will, 
True friend. Then let the wind arise, 

And let the night be chill ! 
And let us laugh, or let us weep, 

What matters it to me ? 
And let the world be glad or sad, 

What is it unto thee ? 

54 



THE NEW POET. 



Not in the purple shall the bard be born, 

For whom the world is listening eagerty ; 

Else should his songs be listless, sad, and strange, 

As sounds of withered leaves, by autumn winds 

Borne shivering along the woodland paths, 

To rot in eddies of the swollen brooks. 

But he, in sorrow and in want upreared, 

Shall feel a sympathy with all who weep ; 

# And with that sympathy his words shall glow 

Like clouds of sunset with a thousand hues 

Of passion, scorn and pity, love and hate ; 

Each with a purpose wandering through the 

world, 

Like stars that wander through eternal space, 

With light and melody. His soul shall be 

Rich in strange treasures as the miser sea, 

55 



56 THE NEW POET. 

In suffering heaped together, one by one, 
Like spoils of shipwrecks. 

Oh ! He shall not pause 
To measure swords with evil ; but shall feel 
His heart beat quickly, and his eyes grow dim 
And his nerves tense, and rush into the fray, 
Snatching whatever weapon is at hand, 
Nor heeding of his fate, or life or death, 
Defeat or victory, trusting in God, 
Doing his duty, faithful to the end. 

And he shall eat and drink and love like us ; 

Be merry and sad like any other man ; 

But more of tears than laughter shall he know. 

He shall not sing, in fashion obsolete, 

Of antique themes, to please the critic's ear ; 

Nor prune his verse to suit the sickly sense 

Of a corrupted age. He shall be hated 

In life, and followed to the grave by hate : 

For he shall speak harsh truths in bitter words ; 

Denunciations fierce and prophecies 

Of woe shall be familiar to his lips. 



THE NEW POET. 57 

Yet, in the pauses of his restless life, 

Shall gentler strains be his than others know, 

And subtler music, such as fairies breathe, 

Which haunts lone shores, dwelling within the air, 

Stealing from him who hears, his thoughts of ill, 

And fears that in the solitary night 

Make the heart throb. 

His name shall be a word 
To waken reverence, pity, fame, and love, 
Familiar wkeresoe'er true hearts like flowers 
Ope to the poet's golden witcheries. 

And men shall marvel at his passionate song, 
Which shall be framed, in melancholy hours, 
By transformations, strange as Circe wrought, 
But nobler, of the nothings that wear out 
Our lives and perish idly ; such with him 
Shall harden and strengthen into adamant, 
Eise to the stars, and battle with the storms, 
And mock the blasts and thunder-bolts of time. 

He shall not live the life of common men, 

In getting or in squandering gold ; in seeking 



58 THE NEW POET. 

Eternal fame by cringing to to-day ; 

His life shall be as noble as bis song ; 

And ere be dies, be, from tbe Pisgah heights 

Of bis great soul, shall see the golden years 

Stretch, like a summer ocean, far away 

Beneath the windless heavens, in endless calm. 



LONG AGO. 

" Di Provenza." 

Island of the desert sea, 

Beautiful and far apart ! 

Beautiful and far apart, 
Island of the desert sea ! 
Oh, thou land of Memory ! 

Oh, thou Orient of the heart ! 

Oh, thou Orient of the heart ! 
Oh, thou land of Memory ! 
Other lands as bright we tread ; 
But our hearts are with the dead. 
Other lands as bright may be ; 

But the glory and the gleam 

Of thy unforgotten dream 
Calls us to return to thee — 
Calls us to thee. 

59 



60 LONG AGO. 

Here it seems and yesterday ; 

Far away and long ago ! 

Far away and long ago ; 
Here it seems and yesterday ! 
Long ago and far away ! 

Was it then, and is it now ? 

"Was it then, and is it now 
Long ago and far away '/ 
Oh ! like flowers in the snow, 
Were the joys of long ago ; 
Other flowers -as bright may be, 

But the radiance and perfume 

Of thy amaranthine bloom 
Cannot perish, memory — 
Sweet memory. 



THE NIGHTINGALE. 



Silver stars are shining bright, 
Soft winds fan the summer night — 

Balmy boughs are shakeu ; 
Out of thickets, dense and dusk, 
Of dark roses breathing musk, 

Mourns the nightingale forsaken — 
Mourns the love-lorn nightingale. 
Oh the poets made the story, 

For to-day and for to-morrow, 
The delightful allegory 

Of her love and of her sorrow — 
The delightful, deathless tale — 
But to hint to me and you 
That old truth, forever new, 
Of the uncloying sweetness ^ 



62 THE NIGHTINGALE. 

Of our incompleteness ; 

That the pain of true hearts is 

The discord which makes true 

Nature's sweetest harmonies, 
As without her mournful strain 
The glory of this summer-night were vain. 



TO 



Thine was the utter loneliness, which is 

The doom of greatness. Who shall measure 

The anguish of thy woe by his ? By his 
The rapture of thy pleasure. 

And thine a darker strife twixt right and wrong ; 

Sublimer wisdom ; sadder folly ; 
And in the honey of thy dreamy song 

A wilder melancholy. 

63 



THE DREAMER. 



But when the sadder twilight fell, 
Came shadows, speaking words of hell ; 
And in the ghastlier midnight felt, 
Obscurer doubts and horrors dwelt. 

He could not sleep. He heard his name, 
And wandered forth ; and as he came, 
A will-o'-the-wisp before him glode, 
Until they stood where she abode. 

Afar, behind the haunted wood, 

The moon was setting, red as blood ; 

And like a shadow, still as death, 

The dank tarn slumbered underneath. 
64 



THE DREAMER. 65 

The pines were wreathed with mist ; the tombs 
Stood spectral in fantastic glooms ; 
And the wild silence of the dead 
Mocked, as he gazed, his passion dread. 

The dim, dilated moon is set : 
The dreamer and the dead have met ; 
And if they weep, with her he weeps ; 
Or if they sleep, with her he sleeps. 

The dim, dilated moon is gone : 

The dreamer dead : the dead withdrawn 

Into the tarn's oblivious flood, 

And blackness of the haunted wood. 



C2 



THE VOICE. 



His voice was vibrant with imprisoned pain, 

That pined for rest in vain, 
Too great to die, too weak to rend its bars, 

And pining for the stars. 

And evermore, as his impassioned strain 

Died with its wild refrain, 
The appealing silence eloquently took 

The throne that it forsook. 



66 



LINES 



Though fallen on stricken field they lie, 

Or blacken on the gallows-tree, 
Freedom ! thy dead can never die, 

Because they died for thee : 
Their names are written on the sky, 

And all the tongues of land and sea 
Kepeat the holy syllables 

To all futurity. 



Ct 



THE CASTLE IN THE AIR. 

Oat of these prison years of pain, 
I look with desolate disdain, 
And with the fondness of despair 
I build my castle in the air ; 
And as its stately walls arise, 
I mock the anger of the skies; 

Forgot the sorrow which await3 
Without my castle's diamond gates, 
I give myself unto my dream ; 
The years to be around me seem ; 
The bliss to be deludes no more 
My soul as in the days of yore. 

Like some fond mistress who to prove 

The passionate vows of her true love, 
68 



THE CASTLE IN THE AIR. G9 

Asks noble deeds and patience long, 
Repaid with seeming scorn and wrong, 
Till, conquered, full of fond alarms 
She trembles in his eager arms ; 

So fortune gives herself to me ; 
The years to be, the fame to be, 
Are mine, are mine ; and like a dream 
The yesterdays of sorrow seem, 
Obscurest shadows of the bliss 
Whose radiance from eternal is. 

Tender-hearted were the years, 

And their eyes were full of tears ; 

I knew it ; I smiled, and held my breath ; 

But my pain was bitterer than death ; 

At last the years of pain are past, 

The bliss to be is mine at last. 

Alas ! Alas ! Alas ! 

For the pain which is ; for the bliss which was ; 

The thirsty darkness drinks the light ; 

I stand where it stood in wild affright ; 

How bubble-frail each massy stone ! 

The castle in the air is irone. 



THE MERMAID. 



The Mermaid sits in the moonshine white, 
And sings, as she combs her hair, 

A marvellous song that thrills the night 
With its burden strange, Beware ! Beware ! 
Beware ! 

And the billows begin to tremble and moan — 
To moan and dash themselves at her feet, 
As, ere her lips, their hearts repeat 

The strain they long have known — 

The serpent strain they have heard so oft, 
So lithe, so deadly bright and soft : 

And the winds, her bodiless slaves, 

Arise from their secret caves, 

TO 



THE MERMAID. 71 

And howl, as if to drown the strain 

Of her tumultuous song ; — 
In vain ! in vain ! its wild refrain 

They deepen and prolong. 

Gone is the magic moon ; 

And over the sky, so late so fair, 
A black cloud drifts, through whose ragged rifts 

The stars like torches flare ; 
And out of the howling foam beneath 
Come sounds of peril and pain and death ; 
Voices that tell of the shipwreck there ; 
Shrieks and curses of drowning men ; 
And now and then, 
Sobs and sighs that lift the hair 
And lie like a curse on the fainting air ; 
And now and then above the war 

Of darkness and despair, 
The mocking pain of that wild refrain, 

Beware ! Beware ! Beware ! 

Beware ! 



DISENCHANTED. 

As one, who long hath dwelt in fairy-land, 
Returned to earth ; with such disdain, I see 

Wisdom and beauty, coming hand in hand, 
Do homage unto me. 

For long ago, what time I dwelt obscure, 
Before an earnest life had made me great, 

I knew myself, and mine, unknown and poor, 
Was all the wealth of Fate. 

Even in my boyhood, I had drained the cup 
Of life ; and whilst the crowd around me poured, 

And passed me by unnoticed, I stood up 
And felt myself its lord. 

The fame of fame, of power the power, the love 
Of love had lost their joy ere really mine ; 

Had left me calm, that passion is above, 
And scorn, that is divine. 

12 



SIK ROHAN. 

" To Sir Rohan it was neither pleasure nor pain. — 
All things aroused in him only the sentiment of en- 
durance." 

Thenceforth his life was idle ; 

Pleasure and pain were ghosts ; 
Unheeded fell the shine or shade 

Of their aerial hosts. 

They came and went, nor shattered 

The calm of his despair : 
What could they show, they had not shown, 

Or do, he could not bear ? 

Yet sometimes in their faces 

He looked up suddenly ; 
And starting, nerved himself, and smiled 

Their shadowy forms to see. 

D 73 



74 SIR, ROHAN. 

And still their phantom glances 
He loathed where'er he met ; 

Familiar with their mysteries, 
And longing to forget. 



THE BUEIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 



Like a torch-flame, flaring, fading ; 
Like a voice of wail, arising 
Wildly, wildly, sadly sinking, 

Sinking down into a deeper silence, 
Sinking down into a sadder, darker, drearier night ; 
From the Abbey of St. Stephen 
Sounding through the cloudless heaven, 
From the Abbey's topmost turret 
Like the sorrowing of a spirit, 
Pealed a single, silver bell 
Ringing out the Conqueror's knell. 



And from out the oaken portals 
Come the brothers of St. Stephen's, 



15 



76 THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 

Come the cowled brothers ghostly, 

All in black, with pallid, shrunken faces, 
All in black, with eager eyes, and meagre, wither- 
ed hands : 

And their golden censers swinging, 
And their broken voices singing, 
And their waxen tapers winking 
In the sunlight, rising, sinking, 
In the golden sunlight shrinking, 
To a melancholy laughter 
Move our hearts, which follow after. 

So adown the streets of Caen 

Wind the brothers of St. Stephen's, 
Wind the cowled brothers ghostly, 

Going forth to meet the Conqueror fallen, 
Treading onward in slow, solemn, awful cadence 
With the pealing from the turret 
Of the Abbey, with the spirit 
Of dim thought in every bosom 
Slowly bursting into blossom ; 
Thus with solemn step they tread, 
With dim eyes and bended head, 
Doinir homage to the dead. 



THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. t 7 

But there comes no long procession 
Winding up the streets of Caen ; 
Glorying in their fearful burden, 

Come no brothers for their brother mourn- 
ing, 
Children for their father, vassals for their chief- 
tan mourning ; 

These are striving for the treasure 
He has heaped for others' pleasure, 
For the realms he won but swayed not ; 
And the twain, who disobeyed not 
In his life, no longer tremble 
At his frown, no more dissemble. 

But the bier is borne by peasants, 
Which doth hold the mightiest ashes 
Ever, ever borne by mortals ; 

They, whom he in life has honored, 
spurn him ; 
They, whom he in life has spurned, to day may 

r^y ; 

Up beneath the sunny heaven, 
Towards the Abbey of St. Stephen, 
Tread the peasants, slowly, slowly, 



78 THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 

Nearing the procession holy 
Of the monks, who slowly, chanting, 
With their waxen tapers flaunting, 
And their volumed incense glooming 
O'er their path, are slowly coming. 

And they meet, and slow returning, 
Enter in the carved portal 

Of the Abbey he had founded 
To repay the evils of a life-time ; 
And they crowd the aisles, and stand around tbo 
Altar ; 

Whence the crucified Redeemer 

Smiles upon them, as some dreamer, 

Some great limner , life-forlorn, 

Dying, imaged half his scorn 

Of the rags which he had worn 

In those glittering eyes, which smiling 

look down 
From beneath that thorny crown. 

And the burial mass is ended, 

And they lift the corpse to lower it 
Down into the tomb so darksome, 



THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 70 

Henceforth which, shall be his only 
palace, 
Darksome, lonesome, loathsome palace for so dread 
a king ! 

Whilst above the patient pealing 
Of the single, silver bell 
Einging out the Conqueror's knell, 
Chiming mournfully, is stealing, 
Unawares, all thoughts away 
From the Monarch's pallid clay, 

Lifting up all hearts there present, 
Up into the heaven of heavens, 
To the throne of God ; and sadly 

Falling back, with memory overladen ; 
Falling back with groans and curses overladen; 
Groans and curses heaped on him 
Who lay there with eyeballs dim, 
Who lay there with silent lips 
Fixed in the death-eclipse, 
And a brow all wan and wrinkled 
With the furrows time had sprinkled. 



80 THE BVIIIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 

Aye ! Each heart was sad and heavy ; 
The red past was sad and woful, 
And the future sad and ominous ; 

Each did shut his eyes and listen darkly, 
Listen to his wildly throbbing, trembling and fore- 
boding heart ; 

And with selfish sorrow, they 

Gazed upon the pallid clay ; 

And each eye with teardrops glistened 

As they looked above, and listened 

To that single, silver bell, 

Hinging out the Conqueror's knell. 

Like a torch-flame, flaring, fading; 
Like a voice of wail, arising 
Wildly, wildly, sadly sinking, 

Sinking down into a deeper silence, 
Sinking down into a deeper, darker, drearier night ; 
From the Abbey of St. Stephen 
Sounding through the cloudless heaven, 
From the Abbey's topmost turret 
Like the sorrowing of a spirit, 
Peals t'mt single, silver bell 
Hinging out the Conqueror's knell. 



THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 81 

Lo ! A stir, a mighty murmur 

In that mournful, trembling crowd ; 
" Who is he, beside the altar, 

" 'With peasant hands upon the kingly 
shroud ?" 
See! they start up from their knees, that vast, 
mournful, trembling crowd. 

" Peasant Churl ! what dost thou here, 
Touching thus the Conqueror's bier ; 
Staying thus his funeral, 
Who, in life though stern to all, 
Yet in death at least may crave 
A kingly sepulchre, a monarch's grave, 
In the Abbey which he founded and the 
lands he to it gave ?" 

" Stood the dwelling of my fathers, 
Where this lordly Abbey standeth : 
He, for whom ye pray all vainly, 

Truly gave it ye ; but could he give ye 
What was mine, and is, for I have neither given 
nor sold it; 

Nor by treason forfeited 
Unto him ? And I forbid, 



82 THE BURIAL OF THE CONQUEROR. 

In the name of God, that here 

Ye give this haughty robber sepulchre ?" 

They have paid the low-born peasant 
For his father's lands, and buried 
The renowned Conqueror. Lonely 

Is the Abbey. Through the stately por- 
tal, 
Through the antique and grotesquely carven, oaken 
portal, 

Let us pass; and leave the dead 

All alone : whilst overhead, 

From the Abbey's topmost turret, 

Like the wailing of a spirit, 

Sounds that single, silver bell, 

Einging out the fallen Conqueror's knell. 



SONG. 

Gone ! and I untroubled sleep 

By dreams of her bright eyes ; 
So long and weary, so dark and dreary, 

The years in dust she lies ; 
The sunlight sits in shadow ; 

The night is an ebon pall ; 
The world he wrongeth to death belongeth, 

So let him take it all ! 

Gone ! and memory half forgets 

The musie of her voice ; 
But all things sadden, which erst did gladden, 

And weep, which did rejoice ; 
Its glory all forgotten. 

The dream rocks to its fall ; 
The world he wrongeth to death belongeth, 

So let him take it all ! 

83 



TANNHAUSEK. 



PAET ONE. 

The minstrel-kniglit, Tannhauser, 
Sits dumb with brooding eyes : 

" What troubles thee my true love V' 
The goddess Venus cries ; 

" What sorrow weighs upon thy heart, 
Here in my paradise ?" 

" A dream," he answered 

With tremulous voice and slow: 

" Thy lover, thy beloved, 
Must from thy kingdom go. 

" Oh, never, never, never, 
Though all around surprise, 

84 



TANNHAUSER. 85 

Though true my love as ever, 

Though bright as e'er thiue eyes, 
Shall the peace of old my heart enfold 

Here in thy paradise ! 

" The world of life and the world of death 
Are held in my limitless love for thee, 

As the welkin circles the earth beneath, 
As the kraken girdles the monstrous sea. 

"And bright is the world which thy spells uprear, 
Too bright ! and sweet this life, too sweet ! 

A mortal, I yearn for the changeful year, 

And the day and the night of the incomplete. 

" Let thy godhead, free from earthly wants, 
Exult in the calm of thy changeless mirth ; 

My mortal nature trembles and pants 

For the sorrow and joy of the life of earth. 

" Old sights, old sounds 

Upon me throng, 
'The running waters, 
The minstrel's song, 



86 TANNHAUSER. 

" Upon the ocean 

The glancing sail, 
In tilt and tonrney 

The gleam of mail, 
And in the greenwood 

The nightingale. 

" For in a dream, beloved one, 

I saw the midnight skies, 
And watched — I know not why I watched 

One star with eager eyes — 

" One glorious, silver star, which rose 

With solemn flight and slow, 
Till from the very top of heaven 
Its rays did on me flow. 

" Then fell a wind, a bitter wind, 

As out of space afar, 
And from the very top of heaven, 

Where shone that single star. 

" And borne upon the wind, I heard 
The solemn sounds of old ; 



TANNIIAUSER. 87 

Heard choral song, and solemn chaunt, 
And bells of minsters tolled. 

" I looked, the star was vanished ; 

I listened, all was still ; 
I trembled, and within thine arms 

Awakened with a thrill. 

" And be the dream from heaven above, 

Or out of hell below, 
Thy lover, thy beloved, 

Must from thy kingdom go." 

Deep breathed the thrilling music 

Of harps invisible, 
Which still upon the rosy air 

Did in the pauses swell. 

" Go freely, my beloved ; 

My singer go," she said ; 
" Smite with thy sword the living ; 

Wake with thy harp the dead. 

"Drink deep of earth the pleasure ; 
Drink deep of earth the pain ; 



88 TANNHAUSER. 

And when thy heart grows weary, 
Be welcome back again. 

" Thy fitful mood I chide not, 
The foaming of the sea ; 

111 suits with earthly pulses 
The calm of deity. 

Go ; ride, beloved, on the land ; 

Go ; sail upon the sea ; 
Go ; take thy fill of hope and fear, 

And come again to me." 

So, when the sound had died away 
Of hushed words of farewell, 
Farewell ! and yet farewell ! 

Loud rang the thrilling music 
Of harps invisible, 

Which now upon the rosy air 
Did in the silence swell. 



TANNHAUSER. 89 

PART TWO. 

" Beware ! Beware !" the people said ; 

" Thy love, a fiend is she ; 
And thou, forlorn Tannhauser, 

Art lost eternally. 

" Woe ! Woe to thee, Tannhauser ! 

And ever woe to thee ! 
Can no man pardon sin like thine, 

Unless the Pope it be !" 

Tannhauser kneels before the pope ; 

" With Venus did I dwell ; 
I come to thee, to pardon me, 

And save my soul from hell !" 

Then spake the pope, " Despair ! Behold 

" This staff on which I lean ; 
When this dry wood shall fill with sap, 

This carven wand grow green, 

" Then, nor till then, thy deadly sin 

Shall pardoned be of heaven." 

He smote his staff into the ground, 

And left him unforgiven. 
1)2 



( J0 TANNHAUSER. 

And shuddered all who stood around, 
To hear the words of doom, 

As if some evil ghost had come 
From its unhallowed tomb. 

Then turned the lost Tannhauser, 

In sorrow and in wrath, 
And all around who listened 

Shrank, leaving him a path. 

And freer breathed the trembling crowd 

When he was darkly gone, 
And purer seemed the balmy wind, 

And brighter shone the sun. 

So backward to the Venusberg 

Tannhauser took his way, 
Until he heard the solemn strains 

Around that ever play ; 

The siren-sweet wild harmonies, 

Which all-alluring rise, 
Up from the rosy region borne 

Of Yenus' paradise, 



TANNHAUSER. 91 

" Again, again," Tannhauser sings, 

" I come again to thee ! 
To love as we have loved, they say, 

May never pardoned be ; 
Accursed for thee, Oh, Venus mine ! 

Arise, and welcome me ! 

"Arise, Arise," Tannhauser sings, 

" Arise, and let me in ; 
I cannot choose but love thee, bright ! 

Though thee to love be sin ; 
Arise, arise, Dame Venus mine ! 

Arise, and let me in !" 

And " Welcome, welcome, true love mine ! 

" And welcome back to me ; 
I kiss thee on the forehead, love ! 

And on the lips," said she, 

And " Welcome, welcome back," she said ; 

" And welcome o'er and o'er ; 
And here, within my paradise, 

Abide forevermore." 



92 TANNHAUSER. 

Low sighed the thrilling music 

Of harps invisible, 
Which softly through the rosy air 

Did on the silence swell. 

" And go no more," she whispered, 

(i Oh, never more remove ; 
Naught lacks my glorious dwelling but 

Thy lyre and thy love !" 

Now scarce Tannhauser forth was gone, 

Oh miracle of God ! 
Than leaf and flower began to shine 

Upon the pontiff's rod. 

" Come forth, come forth, Pope Urban 1" 

And in his trembling sight, 
Behold the dry and carven staff 

With leaf and flower was bright ! 

Then said the pope, " Now bid, with speed, 

" My messengers go forth, 
And seek him East, and seek him West, 

And seek him South and North, 



TAXNHAUSEU. 93 



" Yes, bid my messengers go forth, 
And bid them ride with speed ; 

For I, in bidding man despair, 
Have done an evil deed. 

"Oh, deadly sin ! to strive to mete 
The boundless grace of heaven ; 

For, lo ! by penitence and prayer 
All sins may be forgiven." 

They went, and as they went returned ; 

They sought for him in vain; 
Tannhauser from the Venusberg 

Came never forth again, 

So, let no man the gates of heaven 

Forbid his fellow man ; 
But leave unto Almighty God 
. The judgment and the ban. 

So, let no sinner, though forbid, 

By cardinal or pope, 
Cease in the mercy of the Lord 

In penitence to hope. 



TANNIIAUSEK. 

The eye of woman hardens into ice, 
Beholding me, accursed. The leprous beggar 
Shuns me with inprecations. And the priest, 
Though I repent me bitterly of my sin, 
Shuddering, refuses absolution to me. 
And so, my corpse shall rot unburied here; 
Nor be, with prayers, and psalms, and solemn rites, 
Laid in the aisles where sleep my princely sires. 

So be it. I am callous grown with pain, 
And scarce would climb, if that were possible, 
The wall that sunders me from human kind. 
But ye, true hearts and tender, that shall grieve 
In time to come hearing my piteous tale, 
Think not my nature is so savage grown 
In these wild woods and pathless solitudes, 
That thoughts of your warm tears can move me not. 
94 



TAN Nil A USER. 95 

Ah, wo is me! I muse upon the past, — 
The sweet, sweet past! the bitter, bitter past! 
The pines are moaning in the rising wind, 
Breathing Memnonian music, and the moon 
Brightens above a bank of inky clouds, 
And darkens over all the shaggy scene 
The sombre twilight — Would to God, the last 
That these world-weary eyes should ever see ! 

Oh, Venus ! Beautiful fiend ! Was I not fair, 
And young, and brave, and growing day by day 
To fame and majesty, as yonder moon 
Fills day by day her argent-splendored sphere, 
When by the light of thy voluptuous eyes 
Misled, my soul its strenuous purpose lost — 
My life its stirring joys, its falcon hopes, 
Its starry aspirations ? Woe is me ! 

Oh; Venus ! Beautiful fiend ! Canst thou forget, 
Far-hidden from the world in thy high palace, 
How fled the years, with Joy their torch bearer ? 
Oh, languid kisses pressed on wine-bright lips ! 
Oh, eyes that withered all my soul with fire ! 
And yet, I knew thee, glorious devil ! felt 
The sin that deepened round me as I sank 
Within its sea, a weight on heart and brain. 



96 TANNHAUSER. 

Then came Kemorse, and darkened day by day. 
I loathed thy kisses, and thy melting looks 
Chilled me, and at thy amorous touch I thrilled 
Like one, who waking, feels a slimy snake 
Twisted around his neck. I rose and fled : 
Hoping to live again among my kind, 
And by high deeds redeem .my wasted life, 
And wash from tingling cheeks the sense of shame. 

But woe to him who tampers with the fiend. 
What had I done, that men should hold my touch 
Pollution, and my kindly greetings curses ? 
Oh, Venus ! Beautiful fiend ! Who could resist 
The music of thy motion, smile and speech ? 
But what had passed between us, that should take 
My soul, the power of good or ill, contrition 
Or exultation, from me ? Woe is me ! 

And ever since I wander through the world. 

At first there was a feeble gleam of light 

That led my feet to Eome. The sovereign pontiff 

Forbade me hope. And yet in spite of him, 

Though black my sin as is this night of storm, 

I do believe that God is merciful, 

And will remember what was my temptation, 

The pain I have endured, and this remorse. 



THE CHARMER. 

Unharmed I play with tiger thoughts ; 

My soul to passion's serpent clasp 
I yield, nor fear the venomous fangs 

Of adder or of asp. 

They tremble at my freezing touch ; 

They cower before mf stony stare ; 
Convulsed, they shrinking, trembling own 

The charm of my despair. 

For I a wilder bliss than life, 
A wilder pain than death can be, 

Have felt ; and life hath lost its pomp, 
And death its mystery. 

So let them tyrannize o'er men, 

For they must share with me their hour- 
0<r God above, or fiend beneath, 

The malice of their power. 
E 97 



THE RIVER OF TEARS. 

A poet in his gilded boat 

Floats adown the river of tears ; 

One who forevermore must float 
Through regions of fantastic fears ; 

An exile from what happier spheres ! 

An orphan of what golden years ! 

All silently the enchanted wave 

Sweeps him along, he knows not whither, 
By shores as silent as the grave, 

And under trees that cannot wither, 
Whose branches lift themselves on high 
Around him to the leaden sky- 
He bows his head ; he hides his face ; 

For haunted is the solitude ; 
98 



THE RIVER OF TEARS. 99 

The dwellers of that secret place, 

The spectres of that ghostly wood, 
Grow visible in their wan despair, 
And sighs like snow-flakes fill the air. 

They hover in the misty air, 

They float upon the luminous waves, 

Like shapes of sorrow and despair 
By moonlight in a place of graves, 

Waxing and waning as some star 

Twinkling in earthly azure far. 

But see, he lifts his luminous eyes, 

And hark, he pours his marvellous songs ; 

"Withdraw the melancholy skies, 
And fade the melancholy throngs ; 

The rippling waves around him flow 

In sunlight ; angels come and go. 

Around the shores, no longer haunted 
By shapes of ill, sweet echoes play ; 

They wander on in dreams enchanted 
And indolence of luxurious May, 

Circling like eddies ; and the day 

As in a dream hath lost his way. 

LOFC 



100 THE RIVER OP TEARS. 

m 

Sweet day and echoes sweet, that keep 
These realms with joy that cannot tire, 

Too glad to know or death or sleep, 
And too, too perfect to desire ! 

He knows ye not : your blissful rest 

He may net share, the bard unblest. 

Through other regions of despair 
The river flows and bears his bark : 

Behind him glory fills the air, 

Around him ever glooms the dark, 

Floating adown the river of Tears, 

Waking the echoes of the years. 



BITTEE SWEET. 



Tears are on my cheeks forever, 
And a mist is in my eyes, 

For a smile that greets me never, 
And a scorn that love denies, — - 
A mad pride that love denies ! 

And I wander, weeping, wailing, 
For the day that rose so bright, 

That the thunder clouds are veiling 
Ere its noon in blackest night, — 
Lurid gloom and blackest night ! 

Oh ! so bright the future glistened, 
That the present shines in vain ; 

101 



102 BITTER SWEET. 

And so sweet the strain I listened, 
Silence now is full of pain, — 
Void of bliss is full of pain, — 

And so glorious was my vision, 
That awakening I weep 

For the shapes of shores Elysian 
In the fairy -lands of sleep, — 
The Tar fairy -lands of sleep ! 

Pain is mine ; forever sorrow, 
For the dream that is no more, 

For the ever-flying morrow, 
And the still -receding shore, — 
The desired, forbidden shore ! 

Yet one joy my soul discovers 
In the very shrine of woe ; 

Sweeter are the pains of lovers 
Than the joys that others know,- 
Than all joys all others know ! 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ACTOR. 

''Yes," said the lady, "if" — and here she paused; 

And pausing, slowly searched the eager face, 

From which the flush of rapture faded not ! 

And as she gazed, his soul vibrating hung, 

Suspended on her glance. 

Ah, smile more sweet 

Wore not the tempter, when in legends old, 

He came in woman's form to vex the peace, 

With thrilling eyes and honeyed syllables, 

Of saintly anchorite in lonely cell. 

And he ! in every passionate lineament 

The actor stirred. What could she ask, that he 

Would not accord ? Eager he gazed upon her, 

As still she paused ; and still upon his face 

Abode the flush of rapture, till she spake. 

103 



104 THE TEMPTATION OF THE ACTOR. 

" You are an actor — artist if you will — 

This is your gift, in which you are above 

Your fellows — therefore, it may be, I love you — 

But lo ! the finger of scorn points at your art — 

And lo! the artists sots and debauchees — 

And lo ! the theatre, corrupted from 

Tts purpose, pandering to tastes depraved — 

A temple of the devil not of God — 

Or me or it resign. I will not have 

Tedious apology or argument, 

But answer yes or no." 

Then fled the light 

That lit his brow, as when, athwart the moon, 

Some jealous cloud drops down its inky veil ; 

And o'er his visage, in an instant, passed 

A thousand thoughts ; as when the northern lights 

Begin to fire the night, fantastic forms, 

In radiant multitudes innumerable, 

Chase one another up and down the blue ; 

And as these meteors slowly gather shape, 

Fixing in silvery arch, or golden ring, 

On brazen obelisk towering to the zenith, 

The mad confusion of his riven soul 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ACTOR. 105 

Became a holy calm, and on his face 
He wore a smile, like that which glorifies 
The face of him who falls asleep in God, 
As thus he spake : 

" Oh love ! how shall we wed ? 
Shall I resign the hope, that was before 
I met you — the hope that lit the years of pain 
Before I loved ? What ! give up fame and use 
As Merlin did to wileful Vivian 
In that new poem I read you yesterday ; 
Corrupting all the future has of bliss 
To anguish ; like a ghost to come and go 
Where all was mine ? Or shall I. hide my heart, 
And whisper to myself, 'I will consent, 
And having won her, trust to time and reason 
To turn her from her folly ?' This cannot I. 
I will not sell my soul, though of my sin 
Thy love be held the inestimable price. 
But how could I be worthy of thy love, 
Or hope it would not perish utterly, 
If I should yield what makes thee love me ? No ! 
Though both of us should die, I answer No !" 



THE FALLEN STAR. 

Idly I clove the baffling dark, 

With weary heart and flagging wing, 

As with the unavailing pain 
Of some wild, hunted thing. 

Invisible hands of strenuous force 
Withheld me in my fiery flight, 

And shadowy forms my pathway barred, 
And all the powers of night. 

And siren songs were chanted low, 
And wrought upon my fickle mood, 

Whispering of good that evil seemed. 
And evil that seemed good ; 

Of seeming good which evil was, 
And seeming evil which was good, 

And over all the iron Fate 

Which could not be withstood ! 
106 



THE IRON HARP. 



Sweet singers of the dreams of old, 
Idle are your harps of gold ; 
And ye weep your lot, that lies 
In the gloom of thunder skies. 

Alas ! ye are born too late : 

For the years of peace are o'er ; 

And your gentle hearts deny 
Our grander age of war. 

Ye are born too late, too late I 

And weep in vain your fate, 
And the years gone by ! 

107 



108 THE IRON HARP. 

Your wails arc drowned 
In the ocean sound 

Of trampling armies, without end, 
That onward, onward, onward, throng, 
Waiting the singer and the song 

That they can comprehend. 

With fateful rhythm and rhyme 
Of hosts that march in time 

Other melodies accord ; 
Saga words sublime 

Of musket and of sword. 

Who would our iron age compel 
Must strike loudly to be heard ; 

Loudly must he sing, and well, 
To iron harp with iron word, 



FIEST LOSS. 



For the bloom of faded flowers 

I have wept and I am weeping, — 
For the joys of vanished hours, 

Who, oh ! who shall call them back ? 
Glooms the night a moment riven,- 
Of the star that fell from heaven 
Fades away the fiery track, — 
Faded flowers and vanished hours, 
Who, oh ! who shall call them back ? 

Starry eyes with love were glowing,— 

With the first love which is truest, — 

Lips with laughter overflowing, — 

Oh, the day s that are no more ! 

109 



1 10 FIRST LOSS. 

Honeyed speeches, siren singing, 
Underneath the beeches ringing. 

Or along the gleaming shore, 
Love and laughter, and thereafter, — 

Oh, the days that are no more ! 

For "beloved, never, never, 

Shall those days again be ours ! 
They are gone, and gone forever! 
And despair that longs to die, 
In the ruins of the bowers 
Of that paradise of ours 

Pours its curses to the sky, — 
Faded flowers and blasted bowers, 
Aud a heart that longs to die ! 



THE DEFORMED. 

Wild thoughts were hers in hours of gloom, 
When stared the dead night close above ; 
Thus in her melancholy mood, 
Shut from the paradise of love, 
She mourned the darkness of her doom. 



Love has many a gate ; 

There many suitors be ; 
Gold must wait, and wit must wait ; 

Beauty hath the master-key; 

Beauty ! am I not fair of face ? 

Gentle, yet earnest ? No ! 

These methinks I cannot be ; 

Or would lie leave me so. 

Ill 



112 THE DEFORMED. 

Is he wise ? Is lie true ? 

Yes, my love replies : 
No ; or would he hold so dear 

What my fate denies ? 

Nature ! flow have I wronged thee, 

That I am not as straight 
As she, to whom he whispers 

To-night at the garden-gate. 

As he leans in the misty silence, 
And pressing her tiny hand, 

Outpours the wealth of a spirit 
She never shall understand. 

And his golden voice sounds sweeter 
Than ever it breathed to me, 

With tremulous doubt and longing 
And passionate poesy ? 

Friend he holds me — no more ; 

Had fortune kindlier been, 
And made me tall and straight like her, 

I had been his queen. 



THE DEFOKMED. 113 

But now, never, oh ! never, 

Shall our lips meet or our souls ; 

But our lives, like far, strange stars, 
Go onward to their goals. 

To do is no more than to suffer : 
His name the world shall know, 

For great and glorious shall he be ; 
Nothing of my woe ; 

Naught of the nights of shuddering dreams 

And days of waking pain, 
The weight upon the weary heart, 

The torpor of the weary brain. 

He shall utter his regret 

In what immortal songs, 
Feeding the world with his heart's blood, 

Making ballads of his wrongs. 

I, empress of a sadder realm, 

Shall hold my marble state, 
Smiling sadly when happy men 

Shall envy him desolate. 

E2 



BOAT SONG. 

A song of joy ! A song of bliss ! 
A song for such an hour as this ! 
The twilight hour ! when winds are low. 
And western skies are all aglow, 
And like a dream beneath our keel 
The silent waters lapse and steal— 
The silent waters flow, 

A song of joy ! A song of bliss ! 

A song for such an hour as this ! 

The twilight hour ! when shines above 

The tender, tremulous star of love, 

And like a dream around our prow 

The silent shadows melt and flow— 

The silent shadows move, 
114 



BOAT SOXG. 115 

A song of joy ! A song of bliss ! 

A song for such an hour as this ! 

The twilight hour ! Oh ! night of June, 

Ilaste onward to thy perfect noon ; 

Till, like a dream the darkness fled, 

The silent moon be overhead — 

The silent, silver moon. 



KAVADISKA. 

They lay in heaps upon the barren plain, 

With shivered weapons clutched in strenuous 
hands, 

And death in pallid visages of pain, 
The chosen of many lands. 

The water of Life I sprinkled them upon ; 

They rose up shuddering, and answered me, 
" By Kavadiska was our strength undone ; 

Oh, follow her not, but flee !" 

" Oh, feeble fools !" I answered angrily, 

" Oh, cowards, whom a woman vanquisheth ! 

Be life for us ; but this for such as ye :" 

I poured the water of Death. 
11G 



KAVADISKA. Ill 

So came I to her castle stately and old. 

And entered in the tapestried banquet hall ; 
And lo ! her sword leapt in its scabbard of gold 

Upon the storied wall. 

I understood the omen, and straight, with speed 
Running, took down the charmed falchion dread 

Out of its gemmy scabbard, as decreed ; 
Leaving my own instead. 

Then entered Kavadiska full of wrath, 

And snatching that changed weapon suddenly, 

Cried, as she leapt to bar my onward path, 
" Draw : thou must fight with me !" 

We fought. The sword was broken in her hand; 

She dashed the golden hilt upon the floor ; 
" My love," she cried, " whom I can not withstand ; 

My love forevermore !" 



BEAUTY. 

I hide my treasures in the earth ; 

I pour them on the air ; 
Around they gleam on land and sea ; 

But I abide not there. 

And men have sought on land and sea, 

In earth and starry air, 
The secret of my dwelling-place ; 

But I abide not there. 

And bards have sought me in their souls, 
And caught, to their despair, 

But glimpses of my majesty ; 
For I abide not there. 

Be thine the vision they desired. 

Who hast not sought my lair ! 
Come, take what all in vain they sought, 

And find me everywhere. 

118 



TEE STATUE. 

It was a statue of a lovely maiden 

Whose sleep was troubled by an evil dream, 
And so her face, like loveliness arrayed in 

Unsightly garments, did distorted seem : 
All who passed by to gaze on it were fain ; 
And having gazed desired to gaze again. 

A statue of a maiden, who had risen 

In troubled sleep, and came with vacant eyes 
Bearing an idle lamp ; what fearful vision 
Had summoned her, upon what perilous mission, 

For aye must be a theme for wild surmise ; 
For if a mortal hand that statue wrought, . 

Its art had long been lost ; the lips were sealed 
Of that mad sculptor, and his passionate thought 

Must perish unrevealed. 

119 



120 THE STATUE. 

All silently, because one marble finger 
She pressed upon her rigid lips, did linger 
Each passer by ; upon the meaning musing 
Of that strange image ; losing 
In labyrinths of thought without a clue, 
His eager soul ; then passing sadly on, 
And turning oft, as if to see if she had gone. 

Of it there was a legend quaint and olden ; 

Nay, many a one. That she had lived, but how 
Transformed to stone, alas! that was enfolden 

In mystery. Another, that even now 
Life lay entranced, as dreams in poppies do, 

In that fair form, and hinted of a spell, 

Which one at an appointed time should tell, 
Would call that waiting life, and all those charms 
renew. 

By many, food for jest these dreams were holden j 

By some more wise, 

As true as were the sunny skies 
Above that landscape green and golden. 



A FAKE WELL. 

Faint splendors of the night ot June, 
Sweet radiance of the summer moon, 
Upon thy pathway dwell. 
Farewell, Estelle I Farewell ! 

Dim fragrance of the violet, 
And of the briar rose dew-wet, 
Breathe from the shadowy dell. 
Farewell, Estelle ! Farewell ! 

Far murmurs of the summer trees, 
And voices low of dreamy seas, 
Around thee sink and swell. 
Farewell, Estelle ! Farewell ! 

And ever sweet, by thee be heard 
The hum of bee, and song of bird, 
And sound of holy bell. 
Farewell, Estelle ! Farewell ! 
F 12L 



THE STARS 



"Oh swift and proud!" cried I aloud, 

With breaking heart, in tones forlorn, 

'■ By the solemn songs ye sing, 

By life and death, and love their king, 

I conjure ye to answer me, — 

The night is long; when comes the morn?'' 

And sang the stars, in deeps of heaven, 
With voices full of stately scorn , 
" How shall we answer thee, who move 
In regions thy pale sphere above ? 
What is life, and what is death, 
And who is love ? 
We dwell in light, and day or night 
We know not — know not eve or morn." 
122 



THE CAP AND BELLS. 



How in my dreams with God I spake, 
I half remember, half forget ; 

And memory darkly murmurs yet, 
That all for truth I did forsake. 

Forgot the pride of wealth and birth, 
And in my righteous purpose strong, 

My only sword my earnest song, 
Went forth to overcome the earth. 

But now, the cap and bells I wear, 

And laugh at all I worshipped then, 

The faith of women and of men — 

The hopes of old — and this despair. 

123 



TOO LATE. 



I gazed upon the glimmering wave, 
And smiled to see the phantom moon, 
That reigned within the still lagune, 

Girdled by many a willing slave. 

I smiled to think the mimic heaven 
Showed fair and large as that above, 
And then I thought of my false love, 

Whose falsehood made me bitter ; and even 

As that sharp sword went through my soul- 

Ere yet the swift tears filled my eyes — 

With what a horror of surprise, 

That marvelled at its self-control, 
124 



TOO LATE. 125 

I saw the idle wave beneath 

Take shape : a rigid form was there — 
A white face with a soulless stare — 

And chill hands clasped, upraised in death. 

And on beneath the still lagune, 

Drawn by some secret tide, it glode ; 
Amidst the shrinking stars it rode, 

And right athwart the shrieking moon. 

Slowly it faded — then I knew 

My murdered hope, that will not rest ; 
Earth cannot keep it in her breast, 

And ocean gives i: to my view, 



TWILIGHT. 

Ye sounds that come across the leas, 
And up the hills that climb to me, 

Cleaving the purple silences 

That deepen over land and sea — ■ 

Ye sounds of bells of silver swung 
In sacred turrets ivied and gray, 

Ye sounds of solemn anthems sung 
Amidst the valleys far away— 

Ye are most sweet to other ears, 
But very, very sad to mine ! 

Ye come like ghosts from sepulchres, 
Drunken with sorrow as with wine : 

Ye come forlornly wandering, 

Lost echoes of an age of gold, 

When she was queen and I was king, 

That was but in the dreams of old. 
126 



TO A FRIEND. 

I know that when we meet again, 

Yon will be merry as of old ; 

And we shall wander o'er the wold, 
And up the hill, and down the glen. 

But you, I wis, shall laugh alone ; 

For, ah, since last these paths we ranged, 
What hath been! You shall note me changed 

From him you loved in days agone. 

For I will stand beneath the sky 
And gaze upon the ripening earth, 
Nor smile, or with a bitter mirth, 

Born of a hateful sympathy, 

Exulting that their glory glows 

But to decay ; even as my own 

Which reigned supreme from zone to zone, 

Whose dust a baby's hands may close. 

127 



LOST. 

Oh Time ! hast thou grown old ? Thy flight 
Is strangely slow. How fled the hours 
Of other days, all crowned with flowers, 

And drunken all with dumb delight ! 

We loved ; and in our love content, 

Life's fiery pageantry went by ; 

We saw it pass without a sigh, 
Nor knew, nor questioned, what it meant. 

Forgotten were the dreams of power 
That pleased us ere we met : our mirth 
Laughed at the purpose of the earth, 

That delved with tears beneath our bower. 

Then fell the curse. The grave is near. 

Oh, Death, come quickly — take away 

This weary being ! Day by day, 

I call thee, but thou wilt not hear. 
128 



KING DEATH. 



Come, scholar, pallid and weary, 

And toiler with hands embrowned — 

Come and sit with me, King Death ! 
In darkness without a sound ; 

A nd dwell with me, King Death ! 
In my palace underground. 

Your brows with care are furrowed ; 

Your eyes are heavy with tears ; 
Choked your hearts with the dust of the past's 

Dead hopes and bitter fears — 
With the dry dust of the past's 

Dead hopes and bitter fears ! 

129 



130 KING DEATH. 

Come ; mine is the peace unbroken 
That none in life have found ; 

Come, and sit with me, King Death ! 
In darkness without a sound ; 

And dwell with me, King Death ! 
In my palace underground. 



THE THOUGHT. 



Like birds that flutter to the snake, 

Wild thoughts, that none but he could tame, 
* A thousand, to the dreamer came. 

Of these, the fairest one he chose, 
And breathing spells of secret might, 
He clad its limbs in living light. 

And sent it forth, to bear his name, 
O'er unknown lands and perilous seas, 
With odors and with melodies. 

131 



EENEST HAY. 



I stood beside a poet's grave ; 

And hue by hue, and wave by wave, 
The sunset faded as I stood, 
And seaward lapsed the noisy flood. 

And of his marvellous songs T mused, 
To listen which the world refused, 

Till words of scorn and words of cheer 
Alike were silence in his ear. 

Nor him I pitied ; for to him 
Fame was a shadow vain and dim 
Upon the earth, and still his eyes 
Were lifted to the steadfast skies. 
L32 



ERNEST HAY. 133 

But when I thought of all the wrongs, 
That he transmuted in his songs, 

As alchemists old, to ruddy gold 

Ignoble earths and metal cold — 

Yea ! When I thought, who partly knew, 
For we were friends, how sadly grew 

The haunting tremors of his strains, 

That are to others, as the panes 

Of ancient churches, passionate 
With martyred saints whom angels wait, 
With Virgin and with Crucified, 
(His work the painter could not chide,) 

As these to colorless glass ; and how 

The griefs that others never know, 
Were mortal anguish, as unshod 
With tenderest feet our world he trod — 

When I, who from each artful story 

Could rend the veil of allegory, 
And at dim distance faintly guess 
How utter was his wretchedness — 



134 ERNEST HAY. 

Thought what wild sorrows unconfined 
Struck fiercely his iEolian mind, 

And how the fire that burns and flashes 
Along his words consumed to ashes 

The heart that gave them birth — to woe 
Whose loveliness was wedded so — 

" Though all the world be sad," I said, 
" I cannot weep that he is dead I" 



IN ARCTIS. 



Let us think of the brave ; the brave 

Who went forth 
From the sunny southern lands 
To the white and icy strands 
Of the dim deserted realms 

In the north. 

Fearless, wife and child they left, 

And went forth ; 
For they thought not of the Death, 
That smiled and held his breath, 
As they near and nearer came 

In the north. 

135 



136 IN ARCTIS. 

In the fulness of their hope 

They went forth ; 
But the years shall pass away, 
Nor return unto the day 
Those who perished in the gloom 
Of the north. 

In the dreary polar night 
They looked forth ; 
And phantoms in the sky 
Mocked their solemn agony, 
"Weaving a supernal doom 
In the north. 

In the midnight, lonesome, fierce, 
They looked forth ; 

And cried, " The sun is dead !" 

And unutterable dread 

Fell upon them as they gazed, 
In the north. 



IN AltCTTS. 137 

So the dreary night went by ; 

And came forth 
The pale and sickly day ; 
And they trembled in his ray, 
And knew their fate was near, 

In the north. 

Up from the solid sea 

He came forth ; 
They knew the end was nigh, 
As they saw with tearless eye 
How their strength and hope had died 

In the north. 

And a bitter storm arose 

And went forth 
In the madness of his pride; 
And they perished side by side, 
By the sorcery of his stare, 

In the north. 



138 IN ARCTIS. 

And amidst the ice they lie, 

Looking forth 
With hard and angry eyes 
To the melancholy skies, 
That pitied not nor feared, 

In the north. 

Never from those dumb, dead seas 

Shall come forth 
That bold and hardy crew, 
And none their grave shall strew 
With flowers, nor wet with tears 

In the north. 

But their memory, like a God, 

Shall go forth ; 
And all time shall weep their fate 
In the empire desolate, 
That gave no echo back, 

In the north. 



IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 



My wasted cheeks are wet 

With tears of vain regret 
For all I should remember not 

And all I would forget. 

Oh, how shall these avenge us, 
With look, or word, or kiss, 

For all the bliss that might have been 
And all the pain that is. 

139 



THE GIIOSTS. 

The desolate sea goes up and down, 
Up and down the desolate shore ; 

And tremble through the misty air 
The phantasms of the stars of yore. 

Shapeless and black, athwart the hills 
Ruinous temple and palace lie ; 

And ghostly whisjDers come and go, 
Rustling beneath the ghostly sky. 

Since, from the temples, gods and priests 
Together fled, what years have gone ? 

What years, since in the palaces 
The steadfast silence grew to stone ? 

I look up through the darkening night ; 

My soul its mystery pervades, 
And withers as it feels that we 

Are shadows in a world of shades. 

140 



THE ROSE. 

I hold in my hand a rose ; 

As other roses it seems to thee, 

Sweet to smell and fair to see, 
But from time without beginning it grew, 
Bathed in the sunlight and fed on the dew, 

That she might pluck it and give it to me. 

Yea, the rose I hold in my hand, 
Sacred from other worshippers, 
Was kept with many a holy verse : 

No worm could gnaw it ; no canker blight ; 

It was guarded by day, and guarded by night, 
From every eye and hand but hers. 

I forget the rose in my hand, 

Saying, laughing merrily, 

" Let who will look down on me : 

What is written, is written ; our fate 

Comes to us, whether we strive or wait 

Whether to it or from it we flee." 

141 



THE MYSTIC. 



Mine are vague longings, shadowy aspirations, 
Hopeless but full of patience ; 

Eternally the infinite emotion 
Of one who sees the radiant exhalations 
Of sunset glow and fade in noiseless conflagrations, 

Standing alone upon the sounding shore of ocean. 

Your smile or frown I reck not ; exaltation 
Is one with degradation, 

For neither is, to love like mine immortal : 
I am dissolved in my consuming passion, 
And, like a poet wrapped in blisses of creation, 
Care not when I shall pass, nor at what dark- 
some portal. 
142 



HOW SnALL WE WED? 

Oh love, your starry eyes have fed 
Upon a fairer face than this ; 
There is a poison in thy kiss, 
When I remember it was his ; 

How shall we wed ? 

Can love die ; or wast thou misled 
By slander ? Oh, too lightly moved ! 
Hadst thou been truer, time had proved 
My truth ; but now, too fondly loved, 

How shall we wed? 

Yet think not that my love is dead, 

Or lives transformed to hate by pain ; 

Still must I love, but still in vain ; 

Still worship thee, and still disdain : 

How shall we wed ? 

143 



MELANCHOLIA. 



Of her, to whom the glimmering gray 

Of morn is sacred evermore , 
Whose cloudy altars, far away, 

Are purple with the sunset's gore, 
Of her, to whom the summer noon, 
Of her, to whom the silver moon 
And all the stars of night belong, 
Of Melancholy is my song. 

For I, in sorrow nurtured, learned 
To love her when I was a child ; 

And if at times her love I spurned, 
We over graves were reconciled ; 
144 



MELANCHOLIA. 145 

And for her smile, I learned to dare 
The fiercest furies of Despair, 
And found them impotent for wrong ; 
Of Melancholy is my song. 

Oh ! hers is beauty that inspires, 

Beauty that changes as the sea, 
Which chaunting to harmonious lyres 

Doth ebb and flow continually ; 
To her all nature ministers, 
And every poet's heart is hers, 
And all the dreams his lips that throng ; 
Of Melancholy is my song. 

Oh, deify desire no more ; 

Laughter and tears alike forget ; 
And learn of her, a subtler lore 

Than any that hath thrilled ye yet ; 
Oh, seek her, hearts with bliss that break, 
Oh, find her, hearts with woe that wake ; 
Oh, gaze upon her and be strong ! 
Of Melancholy is my song. 



G 



POE. 



Was it far away in the uttermost East, 

In the passionate East, in the mystical East, 

That this passionate, mystical being was bom, 

This child of wonder, this child of scorn ? 

Who can think of the fervid dyes 

Of tropical flowers and tropical skies, 

Of the marvellous gems and the golden sands 

Of the rivers that roll through those fabulous 

lands, 
And forget he was fitted to be their priest 
In the passionate East, in the mystical East ? 

146 



MAN AND WOMAN. 



Because, even as she spake she sighed, 
I knew herself it could not be 
That spake thus harshly unto me ; 

" Alas, it might have been !" I cried. 

Then, o'er the grief that rent my heart, 
I poured the charm of passionate song ; 
I cursed the age that did us wrong ; 

I cursed the age of church and mart. 

I cursed the earthen age, in which 
We live ; my curse, a tempest, took 
The ruinous whited walls, and shook 

The skeletons in every niche. 

147 



148 MAN AND WOMAN. 

I cursed it by my blighted heart ; 

By all the wrong that it hath done, 

I cursed it. I live on alone, 
But found oblivion in my art. 

But helpless as one blind and dumb 

Stood she ; there oped no door of flight ; 
She had no frown her grief to fight ; 

There blew no wind her pain to numb. 

Her sorrow she could not outsoar, 
Nor quell its flame with other flame ; 
A ghastly shadow she became, 

That in the wood and by the shore, 

"Where she with him in days of old 
Had wandered, loves to wander yet ; 
Nor, till she dies, can she forget 

The love that must remain untold. 



UNA. 



Large eyes of lustre tremulous, in which 
Passion, intensely watchful, as in sleep 

Lay coiled ; whence, as a statue from its niche, 
Her soul looked pityingly into the deep 

Abysses of my agony, and smiled, 

And I was calm, to being reconciled. 

A countenance serene, that told of strife 

Which was but is not and shall be no more ; 

A voice, that vibrated with larger life 
Of greater triumphs than I knew before ; 

Laughter and tears, which, like the spirit of God 

Upon the troubled waters, moved abroad. 

149 



150 UNA. 

These were the fountains of my fierce desire ; 

These were the clouds of this destroying storm 
These were the torches of the funeral pyre 

Whose flames arise around my fettered form ; 
And these the sorceries, that made of me, 
To my own awe, to love a votary. 

I know that my great passion is in vain : 
I know, beloved, that we shall not wed : 

I know that I am doomed to live in pain 
Alone, and all alone, alas ! to shed 

This mortal. Be it so ! I am content 

To have aspired so nobly. If I rent 

The chains of my despair, and with the great 
"Was numbered — if my name shall be a word, 

Nor lower fate do I anticipate, 

By which the coming generations stirred 

Shall upward look and onward — let them bow, 

But not to me — It was not I, but thou ! 



TO EAKTHLY BEAUTY, 



Think not that time shall spare thee ; 

Thy loveliness shall cease, and none remember 

How beautiful and bright thou wast of old. 

Who shall believe thy story, 
That rheumy eyes were bright with love impas- 
sioned, 
That shrivelled lips were sweet with burning song ? 

151 



AUTUMN 



Southward a league, the city lay 
Betwixt its rivers ; overhead 
An oak its fading foliage spread 

Athwart the melancholy gray. 

We lay upon the grassy slope, 

And saw the stream beneath us flow ; 
We sought not joy ; we shunned not woe ; 

Afar from fear ; afar from hope. 

We had forgotten hate and love ; 

We were beyond or time or death ; 

The rippling of the wave beneath — 
The sighing of the oak above — 

152 



AUTUMN. 153 

The faded landscape — these alone 
"Were, and of these a part we grew ; 
We all their melancholy knew, 

And knowing it, forgot our own. 

The spirit of the autumn day 

Had mingled with our blood : " Alas," 
We sighed ; " that such a day must pass 

Like all before, behind, away." 



UNKEST. 



Enough of moody grief! Of tears and sighs 

Enough ! Too much ! Methinks, that I have slept ; 

And now my trance is ended, I arise 
And laugh that I have wept. 

I gaze upon the night. The moon, above, 
Is bright ; beneath, the rippling river gleams ; 

And dancing to and fro, the branches move 
To music as of dreams. 

Motion and light and music that inspire 
Old memories, old yearnings, the unrest 

That vibrated and roared and glowed like fire 
Within my youthful breast. 
154 



UNREST. 155 

And I recall the thirst with which I burned, 
The hopes that lit the nobler life of eld, 

The glory that for thee I fondly spurned, 
The rapture I withheld. 

Enough of moody grief ! Of tears and sighs 
Enough ! No more of passion or of pain ! 

For now my trance is done, and I arise, 
And those are mine again! 



N O 



Love ! I know your little heart, 

Ob ! I read it long ago, 
'Tis to please me, that you teaze me, 

Saying, No, No, No! 

Laughing, No! 

Well ! 'Tis wise, but is it fair 
To make merry at my woe — 

Thus to grieve me and deceive me, 
Saying, No, No, No ! 

Laughing, No! 

Pretty mischief! Changeling! Elf I 
Cease, oh ! cease to vex me so — 

Cease to vex me, and perplex me, 

Saying, No, No, No ! 

Laughing, No! 
156 



FAME 



Oh, hope, that turnest to-morrow to to-day ! 
Full well I know that some have been undone, 
Who, erring in impossible desire, 
Higher than all achievement sought to soar, 
Saying, " I only will be counted great." 
They died unanswered , yet their faith was joy, 
For death to them was easier than doubt ; 
Their passions were as real as their souls ; 
The architecture of their daring dreams, 
Temple and tower, earthquake shaken, fell- 
But fell unnoticed, for the world was rent. 

The love is happiest, though all unblest, 
"Which most exceeds in its intensity — 
Yea, happiest, being most worthy bliss ! 
This is the lesson which their fate has taught. 

157 



158 FAME. 

The love that mounts an undisputed throne, 
And reigns untroubled, is but partly blest, 
For after weariest labour, sweetest sleep 
Falls, as wlien thunder ceases, on the ear 
The silence gathers fathomless and black. 

Therefore I curse not destiny, that sows 

My onward path with thorns that drip with blood; 

Therefore I tremble not, though all around 

They lie, whose courage was not less than mine. 

And I may lay my bones to bleach with theirs, 

Unsepulchred, unhonored ; or, perchance, 

Glow, constellated in the zodiac, 

On unimagined worlds ; but whatsoe'er 

My fate, I am unchanged — shall be content. 



THE BARD OF PAIN. 



Untimely care had marred his face, 
And thankless toil had made him thin, 

Far thought whose lightnings kindle space, 
And what voluptuous sin. 

And burning love and bitter hate 
Upon his brow their seals had set, 

Aud many a yearning passionate, 
And many a wild regret. 

But now the quiet daisies ope 
Above the sod that covers him, 

Nor let the radiant glance of Hope, 
Uplifted thence, grow dim. 

159 



THE KISS. 



The lyre I bear, so sweet of sound — 
I dash it on the frozen ground, 
For idle are its golden chords, 
And vain of song the burning words. 

I kiss thee ; let my kiss avail, 
Where speech and music both must fail, 
To tell the love, which else from thee 
A secret evermore must be. 

1G0 



SONG. 



Let us forget the promise of to-morrow, 

Which, oh, too well ! we know in gloom may set ; 
Let us forget the hope that brings but sorrow: 

Let us forget — forget — forget. 
Let us forget the fetters that we bear ; 

Let us forget the canker and the fret ; 
Oh ! Let who will remember — remember, 

Let us forget — let us forget ! 

Let us forget the friends who have deceived us ; 

Let us forget the loves that wake regret : 
And all that baffled us and all that grieved us, 

Let us forget — forget — forget. 
Let us forget to-day and yesterday ; 

Let us forget the canker and the fret ; 
Oh ! Let who will remember — remember, 

Let us forget — let us forget ! 

G2 161 



THE DEATH BED. 



I know that ere an hour has fled, 
My weary soul shall cease ; 

And none shall weep that I am dead, 
But I shall be at peace ; 

My eyes grow dim, my veins congeal, 

But in my inmost soul I feel 
The rapture of release, 

And smile to think how frail the chain, 

Tha; bound me to this wheel of pain. 

For mine has been a dreary life, 

Of aspirations higher 

Than all could perish in the strife 

Twixt duty and desire ; 
162 



THE DEATH BED. 1 (>3 

And so, the world shall keep my name ; 
Bat as I muse the greater fame, 

To which I might aspire, 
Had kindlier stars upon me shone, 
What matters that which I have won ? 

But not that much is left undone 

That I was born to do, 
Would I the approaching shadow shun, 

The bootless strife renew ; 
For I have known the subtle pain 
That he shall feel who calls in vain 

The phantoms ye pursue, 
And all the tenfold bitterness 
That waits for him who shall possess. 

Butnowis done the weary dream, 

With all its wintry shows, 
And of my love the dreary gleam 

To glorify its snows ; 
Once death to me was full of fear, 
But now with joy, his feet I hear ; 

I know he brings repose. [shed ? 

Should sighs be breathed ? Should tears be 
No! welcome be the presence dread. 



164 THE DEATH BED. 

If I bad lived a happy life, 

And had not lived in vain ; 
If calm had been instead of strife, 

And pleasure what was pain ; 
If she I love, beside me stood, 
And gazed upon me wild of mood ; 

What now had been the gain ? 
I could not bear that darker curse ; 
I would not wish such sorrow hers. 

To gaze upon a forehead pale, 

Whereon the death-dews thicken ; 
And feel that love shall not avail 

The lethargy to quicken, 
That shades me with its condor wings, 
And tears me — vain imaginings ! 

Should I my fancy sicken 
With thoughts of grief that might have been, 
A scanty comfort thence to glean ? 

Is this the end ? The day grows dim, 

And still the sun is high ; 
And shadowy forms around me swim, 

Like clouds within the sky. 



THE DEATH BED. 165 

No more of tears ! No more of mirth ! 
But silence in the quiet earth ! 

I am content to die, 
And in my sad philosophy, 
Ask but to perish utterly. 



AGNES. 

Her glorious voice, save when alone 
The songs he praised in days agone 
She sang, was mute ; into eclipse 
The smiles, that hung upon her lips 
Like bees on flowers, as stars withdrew, 
Were withered as a drop of dew ; 
And day by day she waned away, 
And died, and told not of her love. 

She of her beauty took no care ; 
Dishevelled hung her raven hair, 
And of her eyes, a murky flame 
The silvery radiance became ; 
And day by day her cheek grew paler, 
And day by day her form grew frailer, 
And day by day she waned away, 
And died, and told not of her love. 
166 



SYLVIA. 

I met my false love in the lane to-day ; 

The pretty fool, who wedded sacks of gold, 
And for a heart would give them all away — 
So is her story told. 

I had resolved to speak my honest scorn 
To her ; but when I saw how care had fed 

Upon her loveliness, moving forlorn 
As if her soul were dead. 

Upon the earth, forgotten things among, 
The bitter truths I had resolved to tell, 

As swords that fall from hands by death unstrung, 
Clashing and shivering fell. 

And so we met and parted silently, 

Despair so frozen on her countenance, 

That she endured without a moan or cry 

The pity of my glance. 

1 J J ° 167 



CHANGED. 



I lay in the silvery moonlight, 

And listened to the trees, 
And shuddered as they tossed their arms 

Aloft in the midnight breeze. 

And I longed to see them vanish, 

And leave my soul at peace, 
And leave the solemn night serene 

In its dread loneliness. 

The many dreams of my childhood, 

So, in the days agone, 
Had tossed their ghostly arms aloft 

And vanished one by one. 
168 



CHANGED. 169 

With peals of mocking laughter 

Had vanished one by one, 
And in the darkness of despair 

Had left a soul undone. 

But not the soul of yearning, 

"Which was before their flight ; 
I know not joy ; I know not grief; 

But only undelight. 

I lay in the silvery moonlight, 

And sighed, Ah, well-a-day 1 
I know the truth of my olden doubt, 

My soul has been stolen away. 

By whom, or how I know not, 

Nor when, nor where, nor why ; 
But could I have it for an hour, 

I would be strong to die. 



DEPARTED. 



The love-sick winds went all day long 

About the gardens, to and fro ; 
In vain they listened for her voice 

In some sweet strain of long ago ; 
And where the cypress darkest gloomed; 

And rose the cold, dank sepulchre, 
They entered shuddering, and saw 

Death sitting crowned, but not with her, 

And heedless of their sympathy, 

And blind to all the shows of spring, 
Stretched on a hill-side sown with flowers, 

They heard the weeping poet sing, 
Of one, more lovely than his thought, 

And one, more worthy than his fate, 
Of one, forever, ever gone, 

And one, remaining desolate. 

no 



M A R A H 



Once I bad faith in man and God ; 
And, as a wind that goes abroad, 
From gardens bright, an odor sweet, 
So from a life of bliss complete, 
A perfume rare my song arose, and blew 
The wide world through and through. 

Oh, friend ! the venom of m y song 

Chide not, or chide my bitter wrong ; 

I did not seek, nor could foresee, 

The chance that wrought this change in me ; 

I would not that my song should breathe from 

bowers 

Of weeds instead of flowers. 

171 



THE GATE. 

I dwell in the outer blackness, 

A spirit black with sin, 
But mine are the ancient mysteries, 

That the angels long to win, 
As I stand at the gate of Paradise, 

But may not enter therein. 

To me their sweetest anthem 

Is a discordant din, 
For mine are the magical melodies, 

To which the worlds begin, 
As I stand at the gate of Paradise, 

But may not enter therein. 

its 



DREAMS, 

The fountains of untroubled sleep are dry 

In which I bathed of yore ; 
For, if I slumber, thou art ever nigh, 

And cold for evermore. 

"We wander side by side, familiarly, 

As in the days of old ; 
And hope, from death arisen, smiles on me, 

And makes my spirit bold, 

And I, anew, to thee with tears repeat 

The story of my love, 
And I anew would perish at thy feet :-^ 

But the wan moon above 

Beams upon me alone, and like a snake 

Hisses the uncoiling sea ; 

And so from dreams of anguish I awake — - 

Awake to think of thee. 

173 



NOT YET. 

I heard the river from the hills above 

Eoar by me, rushing downward through the 
woods ; 

My thought flowed through the future of our love, 
Through dreary wastes and gloomy solitudes, 

And doom, and desolation, and of hell 

The anguish, wheresoe'er I turned, were nigh : 
Then I arose and murmured, " I may die 

" Speaking the word, but I will say farewell." 

I found her reading. She looked up, struck dumb 
By the strange sternness of my pallid mouth. 

I trembled with my passion. " I am come 
" To say farewell." Thereat a hungry drouth 

Did seize and tear me. But that thus we met, 
She had not said, a blush upon her face, 
She had not said, with such a plaintive grace, 

With such a tender earnestness, " Not Yet." 
174 



THE TEOLL'S CAPTIVE. 

I had a dream ; from lands afar 

He came, whose sword shall set me free ; 
A lovely boy with golden hair, 

And ruddy cheeks so fair to see ; 
The words he spake were sweet to hear, 

But when the night began to wane, 
I murmured, " Wilt thou leave me, dear ?" 

He answered, " I will come again." 

I told the Troll my dream : but he, 

With laughter loud, -'The moat is deep; 
The gates are fashioned cunningly, 

And they who watch them will not sleep : 
And most of all my arm is strong, 

Strong as the spells that thee enchain." 
And I replied, "He tarries long, 

But he will surely come again-" 

115 



176 the troll's captive. 

And as the years go slowly by, 

He laughs, reminding me of him, 
With thoughts of whom perpetually 

My face is flushed, my eyes are dim. 
" Why waits the coward ?" cries the Troll ; 

"How lorn? shalt thou with me remain?" 
And answer makes my inmost soul, 

"I know that he will come again." 

" Perchance, he found a safer love ; 

Perchance, a lovelier than thee ; 
Better than seek my wrath to prove, 

Or dare the perils of the sea ; 
Perchance he sleeps within the deep, 

Or long ago in fight was slain," 
But I make answer as I weep 

" I know that he will come again. 

I know that he will come again, 

The prince, whose sword shall set me free 
E'en now his bark is on the main ; 

He knows the ancient prophecy ; 
His sword is keen, his arm is strong, 

The words he spake shall not be vain ; 
Oh, love ! although thou tarriest long, 

I know that thou wilt come again." 



THE PHILTEE. 



A glass of water, maiden fair, 

I said to the girl beside the well, 
Oh, sweet was the smile on her lips of guile 

As she gave me to drink, the witch of hell ! 

I drank, and sweet was the draught ; I drank, 
And thanked the giver, and still she smiled; 

But her smile like a curse on my spirit sank, 
Till my cheek grew wan and my brain grew 
wild. 

And lo, the light from the day was gone, 

And gone was maiden, and gone was well ; 

The dark instead like a wall of stone, 

And rivers that roared through the dark and fell, 

177 



118 THE PHILTRE. 

Was it the draught, or was it the smile, 
Or my own false heart, ah, who shall tell ? 

But the black waves beat at my weary feet, 
And sits at my side the witch of hell. 



THE SPHYNX. 



Go not to Thebes ! The Sphynx is there, 
And thou shalt see her beauty rare, 
And thee the sorcery of her smile 
To read her riddles shall beguile. 

Oh, woe to him who fails to read ! 
But woe to him who shall succeed ! 
For he, who fails the truth to show, 
The terrors of her wrath shall know. 

But, shouldst thou find her mystery, 
Not less is death reserved to thee ; 
For she shall cease, and thou shalt sigh 
That she no longer is, and die. 

179 



TIME. 



And I am nothing ; men shall keep 
No memory in time to come 

Of me. Well, let who will go weep ; 
I have been silent but not dumb. 

I care not. Let me pass in peace ; 

For it is written on the sky, 
There is no faith which shall not cease, 

Nor any fame which shall not die. 

180 



TENDER AND TRUE. 



Oh, what with fame hast thou to do — 

Thou canst not stoop — thou canst not sue — 

Tender and true ? 

Thou canst not hide the scorn, 

Too proud ! that kindles in thy face — 

The quivering lip, the flashing eye, betrays 
Thy secret, oh, forlorn ! 

Thy heart, is strong but frail thy hand ; 

How shalt thou hurl the spear, or lift the brand? 

Yet weep not thou that naught is left to do, 

Tender and true. 

181 



182 TENDER AND TRUE. 

Oh, what with love hast thou to do — 
Thou canst not woo as others woo — 
Tender and true ? 

Thy soul must throb in vain ; 
Too proud ! thy love must burn unknown ; 
Howshalt thou bare thy breaking heart, or own 

Thine ecstacy of pain? 
In earthly words how shalt thou tell 
Thy passion high as heaven and deep as hell ? 
Yet weep not thou that naught is left to do, 
Tender and true. 

Oh, what with, earth hast thou to do— 
Of all the worlds is death the clue— 
Tender and true ? 

Pie, and perchance, above, 
Too proud ! hereafter, there may wait 
Fof thee in other spheres a worthier fate, 

Diviner fame and love, 
To him who dares to satisfy 
His fever thirst is Lethe ever nigh, 
Oh weep no more thy life of hope bereft, 
For death is left ! 



AMIDST THE DAKKNESS. 



Amidst the darkness standeth he, 

The dreamer with the bright blue eyes, 
"With whom rest all earth's destinies 

Through all the infinite to be. 

Amidst the darkness standeth he, 
And as the golden stars arise, 
They show unto his tearless eyes 

The anguish and the bliss to be. 

Amidst the darkness standeth he, 

The dreamer with the bright blue eyes ; 
Ilis lightest words shall prophecies, 

Ilis glory shall eternal be. 

183 



184 AMIDST THE DARKNESS. 

For he shall be, yea, even he ! 
Who standeth in the dark alone, 
Of all unheeded and unknown, 

But conscious of his destiny. — 

For he shall be, yea, even he ! 
Above alike or hopes or fears, 
Amidst the clash of swords and spears, 
The standard-bearer of the years, 

The poet of the dim To-Be, 



WHY SLEEPS THY SOUL? 



It sets, the sun of passionate love ; 
The landscape darkens, and above 
The stars of fame again grow bright 
That withered in the day-spring's light ; 
But I am changed ; with tearful eyes 
I gaze upon the kindling skies. 

Yea ! I am changed. Can this be he, 
Who went forth, mailed in passion strong, 

To war with error ; consecrate 
To tread the fairy land of song ; 

To shock with sound importunate 

The gates of fame ? Can this be he ? 

Ah, woe is me ! 
H2 135 



] 86 WHY SLEEPS THY SOUL ? 

Dead is the faith, by which upheld 
The sea, wherein I sink, I trod ; 
And gone the halo of the god, 
That wreathed my brow in days of eld ; 
False was the ancient prophecy; 
A sword that in its scabbard rusts, 

Oh, soul of mine ! is like to thee ; 
A star that on the midnight falls 

Unnoticed in the sea. 

So let me fall ! but when this fire is clay, 

Some one, perchance, shall read this simple lay 

And weeping say, 

" The truest passion shuns the sight ; 

The sweetest flowers open in the night, 

And wither ere the day." 



NOVEMBEK. 



Amidst the withered leaves I lie ; 
I look upon the sober sky ; 
I am not young ; I am not old ; 

I am not rich ; I am not poor ; 
I cannot fear what may not be, 

And of what hath been I am sure. 

I muse — I neither laugh nor sigh ; 
Of all the faded landscape I 
Am part ; I am not tired of life ; 

And yet, I would not live anew, 
Though woods and wolds forever green 

Should be, and skies forever blue. 

187 



PAST AND FUTURE. 



Let us renew the happy years, 

That happier seem for present pain ; 
Although we may not meet again, 

"We will not spend to-night in tears. 

How grand were our imaginings ! 

Remembering them my eyes grow wet, 
For we were conquerors, and set 

Unshrinking feet on necks of kings. 

For we were poets ; and our words 

Were wine to hearts forlorn ; the wrong 
Withered before our magic song, 

More potent far than spears or swords. 
188 



PAST AND FUTURE. 189 

For we were prophets ; scorn and shame 
Were ours, but we were not appalled ; 
In vain we cried, Eepent ! we called 

On desolation, and it came. 

For we were martyrs : and we passed 
Through fire unto the feet of God, 
Knowing our faith was blown abroad, 

Even as our ashes, on the blast. 

What hopes were those I shared with thee ! 
What bliss was ours as hand in hand, 
In dreams, we wandered through each land 

Of old romance beyond the sea ! 

Yet in the past the seeds were sown, 

I trust, of noble destinies ; 

Our aspirations, prophecies 
Were as the future shall make known. 

When some true word or valiant deed 
Of ours shall lighten through the earth, 
We shall rejoice to know its birth 

Was in the hopes that we decreed. 



190 PAST AND FUTURE. 

The past at least is sure from Pain ; 

The future may from him be won ; 

And, though we fail, till life is done 
We cannot know our dreams were vain, 

And it will matter little then ; 
Let us rejoice that we have met, 
Eejoice that we cannot forget, 

Although we may not meet again ! 



THE GAKDEN. 



I wander in the broken walks, 

Beneath the leafless trees j 
And as I walk, my eyes are dim 

"With tender memories, 
For here we walked in sunnier days 

And starrier nights than these. 

In happier hours of summer tide, 
Now changed to winter frore, 

When love filled up the cup of life 
Until the wine ran o'er ; 

In days of joy and nights of bliss 
Which shall be nevermore. 

191 



OUE LOVE. 



Do I remember ? Oh, can I forget, 

Dearest, the hour in which our love began ? 

How thrilled our souls, as if our feet were set 
On dizzy peaks, from which our eyes o'er-ran 

Broad regions, from the hour in which we met, 
Ordained our own for blessing or for ban ! 

Then had we parted, and to meet no more 
Gone forth, how dark, oh love, and desolate 

Had been our fate ! 

How dreary it had been to watch and wait 

And evermore to watch and wait in vain, 

Like shipwrecked men, that on some barren cape 

Of some forbidden shore 
192 



OUR LOVE. 193 

Crowd eagerly, and gaze athwart the main 
With blood-shot eyes, and curse with blacken- 
ing lips 
The stately ships, 

That slowly in the distance gather shape, 
And slowly in the distance fade again ! 



PSYCHE. 



Nature is barren to the breaking heart. 
The sea may thunder on its rocks unheard ; 
The drowning moon uplift her pallid face, 
Eager with horror, from the deeps of heaven, 
Unpitied ; I have wept, but weep no more. 

My heart is changed. I trod the mist-wreathed 

hills; 
I Watched the sunrise and the sunset ; oped 
The portals of my soul, neath midnight stars, 
To ghostly thoughts ; or, in the stilly noon, 
Lay amidst fallen leaves, and mused until 
My eyes grew dim ; but I shall weep no more. 

194 



PSYCHE. 195 

I loved the clouds, that slept within the sky ; 
I loved the river, murmuring in the shade ; 
The music of the waterfall was dear ; 
And dear the song of bird, and hum of bee, 
And sound of wind-swept forest musical ; 
They filled my spirit with passionate fancies, till 
It overflowed in tears ; but I am changed ; 
And I have wept, but I shall weep no more. 

And in the heart of man I loved to look, 

With eyes not destitute of sympathy 

And pity ; it may be I longed for love, 

And fame, and reverence born of love and fame ; 

But whatsoe'er my longings they were cursed ; 

I wept them as they withered, one by one, 

And fell to dust ; but I shall weep no more. 



THE STATESMAN. 



Say shall his memory lie in state — 
A thing of reverence and awe — 

Who was unprofitably great — 
Who knew no law 

Save that his pride upreared — who sold 
To sin the power that wisdom brings, 
The sceptre mightier than a king's, 

For praise and gold. 

No ! let the humbler felon go, 

But still He lives — the god-like fire 

Of that great soul, though dim and low, 
Cannot expire ; 
196 



THE STATESMAN. 19} 

And let the expiation be, 

Even as the crime immortal is ; 

The Grave may not, for sin like his, 
Be sanctuary ! 

By all the evil that he did — 
By all the good he left undone — 

By all the glory that he hid — 
The shame he won — 

The indignation of his verse 
On him let the true poet wreak — 

Of him the just historian speak, 

And speak-a curse ! 



MENE ! MENE ! 



Speak not to me of power that builds its throne 
On outraged rights ; for it shall pass away ; 

Yea, though its empire stretch from zone to zone, 
And bathe in endless day. 

Even when the mirth is loudest shall the wine 
Grow bitter, and the shivered wine cup fall ; 

For in that hour shall come the Hand Divine, 
And write upon the wall. 

Weep, if thou wilt, sad seer ! thy land's decay ; 

Weep, if thou wilt, the hopes that shall expire ; 

Weep, if thou wilt, the wearisome delay 

Of earth's august desire. 
198 



MENE ! MENE ! 199 

But weep not ever-during truth as fled, 

Though deserts howl where once her temples 
rose ; 

Nor weep for freedom, dreaming she is dead, 
Fallen amidst her foes. 

For God remains alway ; and to the truth 

Shall incense stream from many a grander fame ; 

And, in the blinding glory of her youth, 
Freedom shall rise again. 



THE MARTYR. 



When from a life of god-like strife, 
The indignant martyr soars to God, 

Though vultures blacken o'er his fame, 
And tear his clod ; 

Let us not weep for him, but keep 
His memory ; let his glorious death, 

Crowning a valiant life, renew, 
Not shake our faith. 

But weep for those, his guilty foes, 

On whom his blood a curse shall be, 

To haunt their silken dreams ; a dread 

That will not flee ; 
200 



THE MARTYR. 201 

The secret fear of vengeance near, 

That passes vengeance ; and the doubt, 

Forbidding with its evil eye 
The calm without : 

Or those, the men, who know not when 
A kingly soul, amidst our dearth 

Of thought and deed, by life or death 
Has fed the earth. 

His faith sublime grown blind to time 

By gazing on eternity, 
They cannot understand, and yet 

They hear and see. 

As if for trade the stars were made, 

Madman ! they cry, when one comes forth, 

Of truth and justice, with his blood 
To prove the worth. 

Aye weep for them, and not for him : 
And live that ye, beyond the years, 

May meet him at the feet of God 
Nor move his tears. 



THE SWORD OF FIRE. 



I mark thee in thy visionary mood ; 

Thy dreams are not the dreams of yore ; 
But iron pulses in thy wayward blood 

Strike fiercely evermore. 

Rejoice, that fortune took her gifts again, 

That even love was false to thee ! 
For now my soul renews, and not in vain, 

Its ancient prophecy. 

Turn from the blinding glare that blights the years 

Of memory : the sword of God, 
In mercy, from thy Paradise of tears 

Compels thy soul abroad. 
202 



THE SWORD OF FIRE. 203 

Arise ! Than thus to live, and thus to die, 

A greater fate is kept for thee : 
I hear the trump of Fame through all the sky 

Blow like a tempest sea. 

All is not lost ! Fortune shall come again ; 

It may be, Love shall smile upon thee yet ; 
But now, Arise! nor perish here in vain — 

Remember, and forget 1 



THE NEW YEAR. 

1858. 

The bells are pealing across the snow ; 

Alone on high sits the moon forlorn ; 
And be it for good, or be it for ill, 

A year is dead and a year is born. 

Who shall tell what the stranger brings ? 

Shall he crown the world with flowers or thorns ? 
Shall he love the sound of dirge or knell, 

Or the merry music of marriage morns ? 

Yet welcome ! The heart, indeed, is dead 

That yearned for the feet of the coming years ; 

The eager heart that fondly knelt, 

And questioned the secret stars with tears : 
204 



THE NEW YEAR. 205 

And another heart to me is given, 

That scoffs at bliss and mocks at pain ; 
The years are ghosts, and come and go, 
But I, oh Love, unmoved remain ! 

Welcome! but not for thyself; unproved : 
For the hopes that brighten behind the veil, 

That shall grow like flowers upon thy grave, 
In the name of Him who hath sent thee, Hail ! 



THE NEW YEAR. 

1861. 

Child of Hope ! We have waited how long ! oh, 
how long! 
For the sound, as of gathering hosts, of thy 
tread — 
The sound of thy tread and the voice of thy song — 
The voice of thy song, which shall kindle the 
dead ! 

Child of Hope ! For thy song shall enkindle the 
dead, 
Like the marvellous song of the master of old, 
The beauty and truth that forever seemed fled, 
The beauty and truth of the ages of gold ! 
206 



THE NEW YEAR. 207 

Child of Hope! Nor alone shall the dead own 
thy might, 
But as angels came down to St. Cecily's song, 
The heart of the future shall thrill with delight, 
And its spirits in rapture around thee shall 
throng ! 

And the bliss cf the future, the bliss of the past, 
Shall be mixed and commingled in that which 
is thine ; 

And thy joy which no sorrow shall ever o'ercast 
Shall gleam like the rainbow a promise divine. 



FROM THE DEAD. 



Think not that I with silence meek 
Bowed down unto my bitter fate ; 

Though to the stirring words you speak, 
I make reply, " It is too late !" 

Oh, strong of heart, and stern of will ! 

You ope the ancient wound in vain. 
To the swift sorceries of your skill, 

Corpse-like I start, and feel again, 
Of life that might have been so great, 

And was so sweet, the pain : — 
208 



FROM THE DEAD. 209 

Of life that might have been so great, 

And was so sweet, the sense renewed ; 
Upon my aching brain a weight, 

And fire within my frozen blood; 
I frown upon eternal fate, 

As in our days of feud ; 
I frown again with pallid hate, 

Conquered but unsubdued. 

Idly as some wild harmony 

Soars clanging to its brazen close, 
Thrilling our cold mortality 
With passions that can never die, 
Revealing all the secrets of the sky 

With lightning glows, 

Then dies and leaves us darker for its shows, 

My ghost that at your spell arose, 
Shrieking, Too late ! Too late ! It is too late ! 

Fades and forgets its woes : 

You torture him you cannot save ; 

Oh ! leave me quiet in my grave. 



12 



THE HERALD. 



The herald of an unknown God, 

The voice, the oracle am I ; 

I care not if they live or die, 
The words which I proclaim abroad. 

The vessel of necessity, 

Famine or plenty, war or peace, 

Or false or true, the prophecies 
I utter, matters not to me. 

Nor less that I am Void of faith, 

The words ordained abroad I spread ; 
Nor less, on living ears and dead, 

They fall, and work to life and death. 
210 



THE HERALD. 211 

A mirror through which shadows pass, 
A shadow floating here and there, 
I know myself ; and little care 

Take of what I shall be or was. 

A cloud across the azure driven, 
A wind athwart the surging wood, 
A billow on the heaving flood, 

A meteor flashing down the heaven, 

I was, I am, and I shall cease ; 

It may be I shall live again ; 

But the great purpose shall remain, 
Breathing its Orphic harmonies; 

And deep make answer unto deep ; 

And all the orbs of heaven be loud ; 

And night and day, an endless crowd, 
Eternal testimonies keep, 



BURNS. 



Tell me no more that Poesy is vain, 

For even as ye speak your eyes are dim ! 

Brief was the peasant's life as full of pain ; 
Yet who but envies him ? 

To him, the bard, be praise for aye. 

Whose lightest word has power 
To lend a radiance to the day, 

A perfume to the flower : 
To him, by whose defiant art 

The joys and pains of heretofore 

Are joy and pain forevermore, 
Our joy, our pain, of us a part : 

Who would not bear his wayward lot, 

To be the lord of tears and mirth, 
And of the affluence of his thought 

To feed the hungry earth ? 
212 



BURNS. 213 

Men marvelled when the untutored ploughman 
came, 

His country's glory and his age's shame, 

The Hafiz of the rugged north, 

To consecrate her hills to fame : 

They marvelled in their ignorance at his, 

And their oblivion took his pride amiss ; 

His name unblazoned in heraldic scroll, 

His was the birthright of the kingly soul ; 

And ignorant in the lore the schools impart, 

His was the wisdom of the passionate heart. 

No fiery fascination of far thought ; 

No baleful gloom of passion in his rhyme ; 

No painful toil ; but in their stead he taught 
The sweet simplicity of early time ; 

His natural thoughts in natural numbers poured, 
Nor deemed the language which the vulgar use 
Too humble for the service of the muse, 

But in the fulness of his heart adored ; 
And the rude patois musical became, 
Dear to the world, and sacred to his fame. 

And stainless fools have prated of his sins. 
It matters little. Let the years convince, 



214 BURNS. 

Through which the broadening river of his glory 
Sweeps onward gladdening the painful earth ; 

With harvests of rich hope, the deserts hoary 
Grow beautiful, and vintages of mirth. 

I know that other bards, neath kindlier stars, 

In lives diviner, nobler works achieved ; 
A grander fame, in more heroic wars, 
They conquered ; their far glories stand relieved 
In black against the sunset's clouds of fire, 
Dilated on the peaks of their desire. 
But Burns, no radiant fate uplifted, 

To his bright station, out of gloom ; 
They knew him not, until the gifted 

Was happy in the tomb. 
Enough, that in the scanty intervals 

Of penury and toil, he boldly fought 

With his inglorious doom, 

And the nobility of genius taught 

With many a brave and tender word and 
thought 

In songs immortal wrought; — 

Let beauty perish, and the skies 

Grow dim, what time their music dies ! 



THE WILD WAVES. 

SUGGESTED BY HAMILTON'S PAINTING. 

Along the endless reaches 
Of bleak and barren beaches, 

The billows comb and pour ; 
Mocking with bitter laughter 
The hope of the hereafter, 

The pride of heretofore. 

O soul of gifts divinest, 
Thou, too, forever pinest, 

Lashing thy bordering sands : 
The bars of thy dominions 
Beating with broken pinions, 
Grappling with bleeding hands. 

215 



216 THE WILD WAVES. 

The sunset, deep and tender, 
Darkens in solemn splendor 

Over the heaving waves 
Eed with its radiance ; under 
Are clouds of storm and thunder ; 

And in the deep are graves. 

To-morrow and to-morrow 
The sea shall keep its sorrow ; 

But thou, soul of mine, 
Thy day to-day grows dimmer ; 
Shall no to-morrow glimmer 

On this unrest of thine, 

I grieve not. If the spirit 

Could keep the chains that wear it, 

I, too, might bitter be — 
So sink, thou sun supernal 
Into the deep eternal, 

And laugh, thou cynic sea ! 



BY THE SEA. 

Hulls of ebon, sails of argent, 
Go the ships along the margent, 
In the breeze their cordage creaking, 
And around, the sea birds shrieking. 

Songs of sailors, and the rustle 
Of their turmoil and their bustle, 
Stir me, as the ships go onward 
Unto grander regions sunward. 

Them the thunderbolt may shatter ; 
Sunken rocks their crews may scatter 
To the sharks that lurk and loiter 
In the treacherousj deep water ; 

But for me such fate were better 

Than the dungeon and the fetter 

Of this dreary life,— this canker 

Of the ship that rots at anchor. 

K 217 



THE PRAISE OF SORROW. 



Flowers are springing, birds are singing, 

In this merry world of ours ; 
And the feet of happy lovers 

Loiter in its pleasant bowers ; 
And the goblet foams and sparkles 

With the ruddy wine we pour ; 
Silent sits the secret shadow, 

Sorrow with her subtle lore ! 

But when all the flowers are faded, 
And when all the birds are dead, 

And the feet of happy lovers 
From the moonlit paths are fled, 
218 



THE PRAISE OF SORROW. 219 

And the goblet foams no longer 

With the bitter lees we pour, 
Shall arise the secret shadow, 

Sorrow shall be dumb no more ! 

And her voice shall speak in music 

Sweeter than the bliss before, 
And a solemn joy and saintly 

Shall replace the unrest of yore ; 
And our eyes shall see her beauty, 

And our hearts shall feel her love, 
And our weary feet be guided 

To the better world above. 

And in heaven, up in heaven, 

There are harpings sweet and loud, 
And their gladness is to ours 

As the lightning to the cloud, 
And the presence of Jehovah 

Fills the place, but doubt not this, 
That the sorrow of the angels, 

Is their heavenliest bliss ! 



THE EEST OF BOODH. 



Of all the visions of the Eastern sages, 
The garnered treasures of forgotten ages, 
The childlike wisdom of what hoariest eld, 
Of all the faiths which men hold or have held, 
That pleases me, in which the supreme good 
Of the desired hereafter lies in this, 
From earthly suffering and earthly bliss 
To be withdrawn into the rest of Boodh. 
220 



THE REST OP BOODII. 221 

Ye who have known the quiet which is born 

In souls that have forgotten to desire 
But have desired, whom life hath made forlorn, 

By fates superior to remorse or ire, 
Baffled your hopes, your yearnings laughed to 
scorn, 

Chained to the rock, or withering in the fire, 
Hell's barren empire yours, but yours the clue, 
For which Jove trembled, which supreme Pro- 
metheus knew, 
Rejoice ! for ye have had even in this life 

Some glimpses of the bliss of that to be, 
The god-like peace that only follows strife, 

The calm of victory. 
Rejoice, ye kingly spirits unsubdued, 
For your sweet foretaste of the rest of Boodh. 

The rest of Boodh ! Lo, Time the eternal bears ' 
A harp of silence : as its music wakes 

The graves grow green in which we laid with 
tears 
Our dearest, and our faces grief forsakes ; 

Listen, the poet's song dies unawares ; 

Behold, the conquerer's arch asunder breaks : 



222 THE REST OP BOODH. 

And to the strains of that Lethean lyre 
Our rapture like our anguish shall expire. 

That whirl of thrilling passion, joy and pain, 

I would not wish again ; 

Yet would not lose the dreary wisdom won 

In the life which is done, 

The calm of high heroic hearts outworn 

With victory forlorn ; 

I would not yield to death the poet mood 

Which peoples every solitude, 

The power born of wrong 

Which lightens in my song ; 

Unchanged and changeless, yet no more the same, 
Apart from all, and yet of all a part, 
In the deep peace of the eternal heart 

Let me abide with those who overcame, 

From earth and all its phantoms many-hued 

Absorbed into the colorless rest of Boodh. 

The stainless, painless, passionless rest of Boodh ! 
There is no evil, and there is no good, 
Nor life, nor death, nor time, nor space, nor aught 
But conscious will, and all-compelling thought, 



THE REST OF BOODH. 223 

And the deep sense of calm immutable - 

In which the immortal dwell, 

By whom are all things known and understood 

Far sunken in the solemn rest of Boodh. 

The rest of Boodh ! The starry rest of Boodh ! 

The love of old, and the ancestral feud, 

Shall move no more, forgotten and forgiven 

In the repose of heaven. 

The stars shall fall ; the sun be turned to blood ; 

The earth be shrouded in a fiery flood ; 

The heavens be rolled together as a scroll ; 

The form and face of Nature be renewed ; 
Still shall abide the all-pervading soul, 

And still the calm of those who rest in Boodh, 



